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A Prairie Infanta. — Frontispiece 

“ THE DOCTOR SCOWLED OVER HIS GLASSES AS 
HE LISTENED.” 


See p. 79 


A 


Prairie Infanta 

By 

Eva Wilder Brodhead 


Illustrated 



PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY 


rZ’s 

‘I36>7^ 

Pn 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 8 I9U4 

Copyngni Entry 

yyUUj 

CUSS I A XXc. Nos 

^ 0 6''0 
COPY B. 




Copyright, 1904, by Henry Altemus 


The pictures in this book have been reproduced by the courtesy of 
■ * The Youth’s Companion ” 


N 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER ONE 

The Power of Consolation . . . .13 

CHAPTER TWO 

A Sacred Charge 37 

CHAPTER THREE 

A True Benefactress 61 

CHAPTER FOUR 

Wise Impulses 85. 

CHAPTER FIVE 

Destiny Presses 109 

CHAPTER SIX 

Bewildering Satisfaction .... 133 


vii 



I 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

“ The doctor scowled over his glasses as he ^ 
listened ” . . . . Frontispiece 

‘“I will not go with you!’” . . . . 29 ^ 

“ ‘ He is Tesuque, the rain-god . . . 55 

“ ‘ I hoped you’d be able to lend me a hand ’ ” 101 ^ 
“‘Do not make the thread short, Lolita’” , 123'^ 
“ ‘ Tia, you are a lady of fortune’ ” . . . 153/^ 


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A PRAIRIE INFANTA 


CHAPTER ONE 
THE POWEK OF CONSOLATION 

A t the first glance there appeared 
to be nothing unusual in the 
scene confronting Miss Jane Combs 
as she stood, broad and heavy, in her 
doorway that May morning, looking 
up and down the single street of the 
little Colorado mining-town. 

Jane’s house was broad and heavy 
also— a rough, paintles-s shack,” 
which she had built after her own 
ideals on a treeless forty ” just be- 
yond the limits of Aguilar. It was 
like herself in having nothing about 
it calculated to win the eye. 

13 


A Prairie Infanta 


Jane, with her rugged, middle-aged 
face, baggy blouse, hob-nailed shoes 
and man^s hat, was so unfeminine a 
figure as she plowed and planted her 
little vega, that some village wag had 
once referred to her as Annie Lau- 
rie. ’ ’ Because of its happy absurdity 
the name long clung to Jane; but de- 
spite such small jests every one re- 
spected her sterling traits,— -every 
one, that is, except Senora Vigil, who 
lived hard by in a mud house like a 
bird’s nest, and who cherished a 
grudge against her neighbor. 

For, years before, when Jane’s 
‘‘forty ” was measured off by the sur- 
veyor, it had been developed that the 
Vigil homestead was out of bounds, 
and that a small strip of its back yard 
belonged in the Combs tract. Jane 
would have waived her right, but the 
surveyor said that the land office 
could not “ muddle up ” the records 
in any such way; she must take her 
land. And Jane had taken it, know- 
ing, however, that thereafter even the 
14 


A Prairie Infanta 


youngest Vigil, aged about ten 
months, would regard her as an 
enemy. 

Just now, too, as Alejandro Vigil, 
a ragged lad with a scarlet cap on his 
black head, went by, driving his goats 
to pasture, he had said rogue!’’ un- 
der his breath. Jane sighed at the 
word, and her eyes followed him sad- 
ly up the road, little thinking her 
glance was to take in something which 
should print itself forever in her 
memory, and make this day different 
from all other days. 

In the clear sun everything was 
sharply defined. From the Mexican 
end of town, — the old plaza,”— 
which antedated coal-mines and 
Americanisms, gleamed the little gold 
cross of the adobe Church of San An- 
tonio. Around it were green, tall cot- 
tonwoods and the straggling mud- 
houses and pungent goat-corrals of its 
people. Toward the canon rose the 
tipple and fans of the Dauntless col- 
liery, banked in slack and slate, and 
15 


A Prairie Infanta 


surrounded by paintless mine-bouses, 
while to the right swept the ugly 
shape of the company’s store. The 
mine end of the town was not pretty, 
nor was it quiet, like the plaza. J ust 
at present the whistle was blowing, 
and throngs of miners were gathering 
at the mouth of the slope. Prom 
above clamored the first “trip ” of 
cars. Day and its work had begun. 

Alejandro’s red cap was a mere 
speck in the canon, and his herd was 
sprinkled, like bread-crumbs, over the 
slaty hills. But over in the Vigil 
yard the numberless other little 
Vigils were to be seen, and Jane, as 
she looked, began to see that some sort 
of excitement was stirring them. The 
senora herself stood staring, wide- 
eyed and curious. Ana Vigil, her eld- 
est girl, was pointing. Attention 
seemed to be directed toward some- 
thing at the foot of the hill behind 
Jane’s house, and she turned to see 
what was going on there. 

A covered wagon, of the prairie- 
16 


A Prairie Infanta 


schooner type, was drawn up at the 
foot of the rise. Three horses were 
hobbled near by, and a little fire 
smoked itself out, untended. The 
whole thing meant merely the night 
halt of some farer to the mountains. 
Jane, about to turn away, saw some- 
thing, however, which held her. In 
the shadow of the wagon the doctor’s 
buggy disclosed itself. Some one lay 
ill under the tunnel of canvas. 

She had just .said this to herself 
when out upon the sunny stillness 
rang a sharp, lamentable cry, such 
as a child might utter in an extremity 
of fear or pain. The sound seemed 
to strike a sudden horror upon the 
day’s bright face, and Jane shivered. 
She made an impulsive step out into 
her corn-field, hardly knowing what 
she meant to do. And then she saw 
the doctor alighting from the wagon, 
and pausing to speak to a man who 
followed him. 

This man wore a broad felt hat, 
whose peaked crown was bound in a 

2 — A Prairie Infanta. -| rr 


A Prairie Infanta 


silver cord which glittered gaily above 
the startled whiteness of his face. He 
had on buckskin trousers, and there 
was a dash of color at his waist, like a 
girdle, which gave a sort of theatric 
air to his gesture as he threw up his 
arms wildly and turned away. 

The doctor seemed perplexed. He 
looked distractedly about, and seeing 
Jane Combs in her field, called to her 
and came running. He reached the 
fence breathless, for he was neither 
so young nor so .slim as the man lean- 
ing weeping against the wagon-step. 

‘‘Will you go over there. Miss 
Combs he panted. “There ’s a poor 
woman in that wagon breathing her 
last. They were on their way from 
Taos to Cripple Creek— been camping 
along the way for some time. Proba- 
bly they struck bad water somewhere. 
She ’s had a low fever. The husband 
—Keene, his name is— came for me at 
daybreak, but it was too late. She 
seems to be a Mexican, though the 
man is nT. What I want you to do is 
18 


A Prairie Infanta 


to look after a child— a little girl of 
ten or twelve— who is there with her 
mother. She must be brought away. 
Did you hear her cry out just now?— 
that desperate wail? We ’d just told 
her!’’ 

I guess everybody heard it,” said 
Jane. Mechanically she withdrew the 
bolt of the gate, which forthwith col- 
lapsed in a tangle of barbed wire. 
Tramping over this snare, Jane faced 
the doctor as he wiped his brows. I 
aint much hand with children,” she 
reminded him. “ You better .send Se- 
nora Vigil, too.” 

As she strode toward the wagon, the 
man in the sombrero looked up. He 
was good-looking, in a girlish sort of 
way, with a fair skin and blue eyes. A 
lock of damp, yellow hair fell over his 
forehead, and he kept pushing it back 
as if it confused and blinded him. 

‘‘ Go in, ma’am— go in!” he said, 
brokenly. “ Though I do not reckon 
any one can do much for her. Poor 
Margarita ! I wish I ’d made her life 
19 


A Prairie Infanta 


easier— but luck was against me ! Go 
in, ma’am!” 

As Jane, clutching the iron brace, 
clambered up the step and pulled back 
the canvas curtain, the inner darkness 
struck blank upon her s\m-blinded 
eyes. Then presently a stretch of red 
stuff, zigzagged with arrow-heads of 
white and orange and green, grew dis- 
tinct, and under the thick sweep of 
the Navajo blanket, the impression of 
a long, still .shape. The face on the 
flat pillow was also still, with closed 
eyes whose lashes lay dark upon the 
lucid brown of the cheek. A braid of 
black hair, shining like a rope of silk, 
hung over the Indian rug. Heavy it 
hung, in a lifeless fall, which told 
Jane that she was too late for any last 
service to the stranger lying before 
her under the scarlet cover. 

Neither human kindness nor any- 
thing could touch her farther. The 
tale of what we are ” was ended for 
her ; and from the peace of the quiet 
lips it seemed as if the close had been 
20 


A Prairie Infanta 


entirely free of bitterness or pain. 
J ane moved toward the sleeper. She 
meant to lay the hands together, as she 
remembered her mother ^s had been 
laid long ago in the stricken gloom of 
the Kansas farmhouse which had 
been her home; but .suddenly there 
was a movement at her feet, and she 
stopped, having stumbled over some 
living thing in the shadows of the 
couch, something that stirred and 
struggled and gasped passionately, 
^‘Vamos! YamosV^ 

Such was the wrathful force of this 
voice which, with so little courtesy, 
bade the intruder begone, as fairly to 
stagger the well-meaning visitor. 

I want to help you, my poor 
child!’’ Jane said. And her bosom 
throbbed at the sight of the little, 
stony face now lifted upon her from 
the dusk of the floor— a face with a 
flerce gleam in its dark eyes, and 
clouded with a wild array of black 
hair in which was knotted and twisted 


21 


A Prairie Infanta 


a fantastic faja of green wool, nar- 
rowly woven. 

“ I ask no help!” said the child, in 
very good English. Only that you 
go away! We— we want to be by our- 
selves, here—” suddenly she broke 
off, glancing piteously toward the 
couch, and crying out in a changed, 
husky voice, Madre mia! muertal 
muerta! ” 

A ray of sunshine sped into the 
wagon as some hand outside withdrew 
the rear curtain a little. It shot a 
sharp radiance through the red and 
orange of the Indian blanket, and 
flashed across the array of tin and 
copper cooking things hung against 
one of the arching ribs of the canvas 
hood. Also it disclosed how slight 
and small a creature it was who spoke 
so imperatively, asking solitude for 
her mourning. 

Jane, viewing the little, desperate 
thing, seemed to find in herself no 
power of consolation. And as she 
stood wordless, with dimming eyes, 
22 


A Prairie Infanta 


there came from without a sound of 
mingling voices. Others were come 
with offers of service and sympathy. 
A confusion of Spanish and English 
hurtled on Jane’s uncomprehending 
ear ; some one climbing the step cried, 
‘‘Ave Maria!’’ as his eyes fell on the 
couch. It was Pablo Vigil, a mild- 
eyed Mexican, with a miner’s lamp 
burning blue in his cap. 

Behind him rose the round, doughy 
visage of his wife, blank with awe. 
She muttered a saint’s name as she 
dragged herself upward, and saidj 
Ay ! ay ! ay ! the poor little one ! Let 
me take her away! So you are here, 
too, Mees Combs. But she will not 
speak to you, eh ? Lo set lo se! She 
will speak to one who is like herself, 
a Mexican!” 

She seemed to gather up the child 
irresistibly, murmuring over her in 
language Jane could not understand, 

Tell me thy name, pohrecita! Maria 
de los Dolores, is it ? A name of tears, 
but blessed. And they call thee Lola, 
23 


A Prairie Infanta 


surely, as the custom is ? Come, 
querida! Come with me to my house. 
It will please thy mother!’’ 

It was not precisely clear to Jane 
how among them the half-dozen Mexi- 
can women, who now thronged the 
wagon and filled it with wailing ex- 
clamations, managed to pass the little 
girl from hand to hand and out into 
the air. Seeing, however, that this 
was accomplished, she descended into 
the crowd of villagers now assembled 
outside. There was a strange, dumb 
pain in her breast as she saw the lit- 
tle, green-tricked head disappear in 
the press about the doctor’s buggy. 
She was sensible of wishing to carry 
the child home to her own dwelling; 
and'ihere was in her a kind of jealous 
pang that Senora Vigil should so 
easily have accomplished a task of 
which she herself had made a distinct 
failure. 

If I ’d only known how to call the 
poor little soul a lot of coaxing 
names ! ’ ’ deplored Jane. ^ ^ Then may- 
24 


A Prairie Infanta 


be she have come with me. She ’d 
have been better off sleeping on my 
good feather bed than what she will 
on those ragged Mexican mats over 
to VigiPs.’’ Then, observing that 
two burros and several goats, taking 
advantage of the open gate, were now 
gorging themselves on her alfalfa, she 
proceeded to make a stern end of their 
delight. 

Early in the morning of the stran- 
ger’s burial, Mexicans from up the 
canon and down the creek arrived in 
town in ramshackle wagons, attended 
by dogs and colts. She who lay dead 
had been of their race. It was meet 
that she should not go unfriended to 
the Campo Santo. Besides, the 
weather was fine, and it is good to see 
one’s kinsfolk and acquaintances now 
and then. The church, too, would be 
open, although the padre, who lived in 
another town, might not be there. 
Young and old, they crowded the nar- 
row aisles, even up to the altar space, 
where a row of tapers burned in the 
25 


A Prairie Infanta 


solemn gloom. Little children were 
there, also, hushed with awe. And 
many a sad-faced Mexican mother 
pressed her baby closer to her heart 
that day, taking note of the little girl 
in the front pew, sitting so silent and 
stolid beside her weeping father. 

Jane Combs was in the back of the 
church. In their black rehozos, the 
poorest class of poor Mexican women 
were clad with more fitness than she. 
For Jane, weighted with the gravity 
of the occasion, had donned an austere 
black bonnet such as aged ladies wear, 
and its effect upon her short locks was 
incongruous in the extreme. No one, 
however, thought of her as being more 
queer than usual; for her sunburned 
cheeks were wet with tears, and her 
eyes were deep with tenderness and 
pity as they fixed themselves upon the 
small, rigid figure in the shadows of 
the altar’s dark burden. 

Upon the following day, as Miss 
Combs opened her ditch-gate for the 
tide of mine water which came in a 
26 


A Prairie Infanta 


flume across the arroyo, she saw the 
doctor and Mr. Keene approaching. 
They had an absorbed air, and as she 
opened the door for them the doctor 
said, Miss Combs, we want you to 
agree to a plan of ours, if you can. ’ ’ 
Keene tilted his chair restlessly. 
He looked as if life was regaining 
its poise with him, and his voice 
seemed quite cheerful as he said. 
Well, it ’s about my little girl ! I ’m 
bound for a mountain-camp, and it ’s 
no place for a motherless child. Lola ’s 
a kind of queer little soul, too ! My 
wife made a great deal of her. She 
was from old Mexico, ma^am. She 
was a mestizo— not pure Indian, you 
know, but part Spanish. Her folks 
were rancheros^ near Pachuca, where 
I worked in the mines. I ^m from 
Texas, myself. They were n’t like 
these peons about here— they were 
good people. They never wanted 
Margarita to marry me. ’ ’ He laughed 
a little. But she did, and the old 
folks never let up on her. They ’re 
27 


A Prairie Infanta 


both dead now. We Ve lived hither 
and yon around New Mexico these 
ten years past, and I aint been very 
successful ; though things will be dif- 
ferent now that I Ve decided to pull 
out for the gold regions!’^ 

Keene paused with an air of grow- 
ing good cheer. He seemed to for- 
get his point. Wliereupon the doc- 
tor said simply: In view of these 
things, Mr. Keene would like to malve 
some arrangement for leaving his 
daughter here until he can look 
round. 

‘‘And we thought of your taking 
her, ma’am,’’ broke in Keene, with 
renew^ed anxiety. “ Lola ’s delicate 
and high-strung, and I don’t know 
how to manage her like my wife did. 
It ’ll hamper me terrible to take her 
along. Of course she ’s bright,” he in- 
terpolated, hastily. “ She was always 
picking up things everywhere, and 
speaks two languages well. And she ’d 
be company for you, ma’am, living 


28 



A Prairie Infanta 

“ ‘ I WILL NOT GO WITH YOU ! ' 
29 



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A Prairie Infanta 


alone like you do. And I ’d pay any 
board you thought right.’’ 

J ane ’s pulses had leaped at his sug- 
gestion. She was aware of making 
a resolute effort as she said, 
‘‘ Wouldn’t Lola be happier with the 
Vigils?” 

Her mother would n’t rest in her 
grave,” cried Keene, if she knew 
the child was being brought up 
amongst a tribe of peons ! And me— 
I want my child to grow up an Ameri- 
can citizen, ma’am! ” 

Take the little girl. Miss Combs,” 
advised the doctor. It ’ll be good 
for you to have her here.” 

I Ve got to think if it ’ll be good 
for her, ” said J ane. 

If that ’s all!” chorused the two 
men. They rose. The thing was set- 
tled. ‘‘I ’ll go and tell the Vigil 
tribe,” said Keene, and send Lola’s 
things over here right off.” With a 
wave of the hand and a relieved look, 
he went down the road. 

That night a boy brought to Jane’s 

31 


A Prairie Infanta 


door a queer little collapsible trunk of 
sun-cured hide, thonged fast with 
leather loops. The Navajo blanket 
was outside. Jane surmised that Mr. 
Keene had sent it because he dreaded 
its saddening associations. A mes- 
sage from him conveyed the informa- 
tion that he expected to leave town 
early the next morning, and that Lola 
would be sent over from the Vigils. 

All during the afternoon J ane 
waited with breathless expectancy. 
The afternoon waned, but Lola did 
not come. Finally, possessed of fear 
and foreboding, Jane set forth to in- 
quire into the matter. 

Upon opening the Vigil gate, she 
saw Lola herself sitting on the door- 
step, looking over toward the little 
wood crosses of the Mexican burying- 
ground. The girl hardly noted Jane’s 
approach, but behind her, Senora 
Vigil came forward, shaking her head 
at Jane and touching her lip signifi- 
cantly. 

She does not know,” whispered 
32 


A Prairie Infanta 


the senora. Her papa did not say 
good-by. He said it was better for 
him to ‘ slip away.’ And me— I could 
not tell her ! I am only a woman. ’ ’ 

“ You think— she will not want— to 
live with me'?” 

The other’s face grew very bland. 

She said to-day ‘ how ugly ’ was 
your house,” confessed Senora Vigil. 
‘‘And when you was feeding your 
chickens she cried out, ^Hola, what 
a queer woman is yonder!’ Chil- 
dren have funny things in their heads. 
But it is for you to tell her you come 
to fetch her away ! ’ ’ And the senora 
called out, ‘^Lolita, ven acaV^ 

The girl looked up startled. 
hay .she asked, coming toward them 
apprehensively. 

“ Lola,” began Jane, “ your papa 
wants you should stay with me for a 
while. He— he saw how lonesome I 
was,” she continued, unwisely, “ and 
—and so he decided to leave you here. 
Lola, I hope— I— ” She could not go 
on for the strangeness in Lola’s gaze. 
33 


A Prairie Infanta 


Is he gone—mj father ? But no ! 
he would not leave me behind! No! 
no! Dejeme! dejeme! you do not say 
the truth! You shall not touch me! 
I will not— will not go with you!’’ 
She turned wildly, dizzily, as if about 
to run she knew not where ; and then 
flung herself down before Senora 
Vigil, clasping the Mexican woman’s 
knees in a frantic, fainting grasp. 


34 


A SACRED CHARGE 


3— A Prairie Infanta. 








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CHAPTER TWO 


A SACRED CHARGE 

J ANE helplessly regarded the 
child’s despair, while Senora 
Vigil maintained an attitude cu- 
riously significant of deep compas- 
sion and a profound intention of neu- 
trality. With the sound of Lola’s dis- 
traught refusals in her ear, Jane felt 
upon her merely the instinct of flight. 
She rallied her powers of speech and 
set her hand on the gate, saying 
simply, I ’m going. She better stay 
here.” 

But at this the senora ’s face, which 
had exhibited a kind of woful plea- 
sure in the excitement of the occasion, 
took on an anxious frown. 

‘^And the board-money?” .she ex- 
claimed, with instant eagerness. 

37 


A Prairie Infanta 


I guess it ’ll be all right. Mr. 
Keene said he ’d send it every 
month.” 

The senora’s eyes narrowed. He 
said so! Ay, but who can say he 
shall remember ? There are eight 
chickens to eat of our meal already. 
No, Mees Combs ! The mucJiacha was 
left to you. It is a charge very sacred. 
Ave Maria! yes!” 

Jane had closed the gate. I can’t 
force her,” she repeated. 

Sehora Vigil, watching her go, fell 
a prey to lively dissatisfaction. San- 
to cielo!” .she thought. What will 
my Pablo say to this ? I must run to 
the mine for a word with him. It is 
most serious, this business!” And 
casting her apron over the whip-cord 
braids of her coarse hair, she started 
hastily down toward the bridge. 

Lola, crouching on the ground, 
watched her go. It was very quiet 
in the grassless yard. The Vigil chil- 
dren were playing in the arroyo bed. 
Their voices came with a stifled sound. 
38 


A Prairie Infanta 


There was nothin^^ else to hear save 
the far-off moaning of a wild dove 
somewhere up Gonzales canon. The 
echo was like a soft, sad voice. It 
sounded like the mournful cry of one 
who, looking out of heaven, saw her 
hapless little daughter bereaved and 
abandoned, and was moved, even 
among the blessed, to a sobbing utter- 
ance. 

Lola sat up to listen. Her father 
had spoken of going through that 
canon from which the low call came. 
Even now he was traveling through 
the green hills, regretting that he had 
left his child behind him at the in- 
stance of a strange woman! Even 
now he was doubtless deploring that 
he should have been moved to con- 
sider another’s loneliness before his 
own. 

Wicked woman,” thought the 
girl, angrily, to ask him to leave me 
here— my poor papa!” She sprang 
to her feet, filled with an impetuous 
idea. She might follow her father ! 

39 


A Prairie Infanta 


There was the road, and no one by 
to hinder her. Even the hideous 
wooden house of the short-haired wo- 
man looked deserted. Lola, with an 
Indian’s stealth of tread, crossed the 
bridge, and walked without suspicious 
haste up the empty street. 

At the mouth of the canon, taking 
heart of the utter wilderness all about, 
she began to run. Before her the 
great Spanish Peaks heaved their 
blue pyramids against the desert sky. 
Shadows were falling over the rough, 
winding road, and as she rushed on 
and on, many a gully and stone and 
tree-root took her foot unaware in the 
growing gray of twilight. Presently 
a star came out, a strange-faced 
star. Others followed in an unfamil- 
iar throng, which watched her curi- 
ously when, breathless and exhausted, 
she dropped down beside a little 
spring to drink. The water refreshed 
her. She lay back on the cattle- 
tramped hill to rest. 

Dawn was rosy in the east when she 
40 


A Prairie Infanta 


awoke, dazed to find herself alone in a 
deep gorge. Her mission recurred to 
her, and again she took the climbing 
road. Now, however, the way was 
hard, for it rose ever before her, and 
her feet were swollen. 

As the day advanced it grew sultry, 
with a menace of clouds to the west. 
After a time the great peaks were lost 
in dark clouds, and distant thunder 
boomed. A lance of lightning rent 
the nearer sky, and flashed its vivid 
whiteness into the gorge. This had 
narrowed so that between the steep 
hills there was only room for the ar- 
royo and the little roadway beside it. 
Before the rain began to fall on Lola ’s 
bare head, as it did shortly in -sheets, 
the stream-bed had become a raging 
torrent, down which froth and spume 
and uprooted saplings were spinning. 

In an instant the canon was a wild 
tumult of thunder and roaring water, 
and Lola, barely keeping her feet, had 
laid hold of a pihon on the lower slope 
and was burying her head in the 
41 


A Prairie Infanta 


spiked branches. Wind and rain 
buffeted the child. The ground be- 
gan to slip and slide with the furious 
downpour, but she held fast, possessed 
of a great fear of the torrent sweeping 
down below her. 

As she listened to the crashing of 
the swollen tide, another noise seemed 
to mingle with the sound of the moun- 
tain waters— a sound of bellowing and 
trampling, as of a stampeded herd. A 
sudden horror of great rolling eyes 
and rending horns and crazy hoofs 
hurtled through the girl’s dizzy brain. 
Her hands loosened. She began to 
slip down. 

The rain had slackened when Bev 
Gribble, looking from his herder’s hut 
up on the mesa, saw that his “ bunch” 
of cattle had disappeared. Certain 
tracks on the left of the upland pas- 
ture exhibited traces of a hasty de- 
parture. That there had been a cloud- 
burst over toward the Peaks he was as 
yet ignorant; nor did he discover 


42 


A Prairie Infanta 


this until he had caught his cow-pony 
and descended into the ravine. 

The sun was shining now, and the 
arroyo was nothing more than a 
placid, though muddy stream. Its 
gleaming sides, however, spoke lucid- 
ly to Bev’s intelligence, and he set the 
pony at a smarter pace in the marshy 
road. 

‘^Sus! Sus!^’ said Bev to his pony, 
who knew Sanish best, being a bronco 
from the south. But Coco did not re- 
spond. Instead, he came back sud- 
denly on his haunches, as if the rope 
on the cow-puncher’s saddle had 
lurched to the leap of a steer. 

Coco knew well the precise instant 
when it is advisable for a cow-pony to 
forestall the wrench of the lasso. But 
now the loop of hemp hung limp on 
the , saddle-horn, and Gribble, sur- 
prised at being nearly thrown, rose in 
the stirrups to see what was under- 
foot. 

A drenched thing it was which hud- 
dled at the roadside; very limp, in- 
43 


A Prairie Infanta 


deed, and laxly lending itself to the 
motions of Gribble’s hands as he 
lifted and shook it. 

‘‘ Seems to be alive!’’ muttered the 
cow-puncher. ‘‘Where could she have 
dropped from ? Aha ! here ’s a broken 
arm ! I better take her right to town 
to the doctor. Hi there, Coco!” He 
laid Lola over the -saddle and mounted 
behind his dripping burden. 

When the coal-camp came in sight 
on the green skirt of the plains, with 
the Apishapa scrolling the distance 
in a velvet ribbon, sunset was already 
forward, and the smoke of many an 
evening fire veined the late sky. 

A man coming toward the canon 
stopped at sight of Gribble. He was 
the store clerk going home to supper. 
He shouted, “Hullo, Bev! Why, 
what have you struck Bless me, it ’-s 
the little girl they ’re all hunting! 
She belongs to Miss Combs, it seems. 
Her mother died here the other day. 
Pound her up the canon, eh? They 
been all ranging north, thinking she’d 
44 


A Prairie Infanta 


taken after her pa. Maybe she 
thought he ’d headed for La Veta 
pass? Looks sure ’nough bad, don’t 
she?” 

J ane, when she heard the pony cross 
the bridge, ran to the door, as she had 
run so many times during the long, 
anxious day. She took the girl from 
Gribble without a word, and bore her 
into the house from which she had fled 
with so much loathing. 

Don’t look so scared!” said Grib- 
ble, kindly. It ’s only a broken bone 
or so.” As this consoling assurance 
seemed not to lessen Jane’s alarm, he 
went on cheerfully to say, There 
isn’t one in my body hasn’t been 
splintered by these broncos ! Tinker 
’em up and they ’re better than new. 
Here ’s doc coming lickety-switch ! 
He ’ll tell you the same.” 

But the doctor was less encourag- 
ing. It isn’t merely a question of 
bones,” he said, observing his patient 
finally in her splints and bandages. 

It ’s the nervous strain she ’s lately 
45 


A Prairie Infanta 


undergone. She ’s been overtaxed 
with so much excitement and sor- 
row. If she pulls through, it ’ll be the 
nursing.” 

Jane drew a deep breath. ‘‘ She 
won’t die if nursing can save her!” 
said she. Her face shone with grave 
sacrificial tenderness, in the light of 
which the shortcomings of her un- 
couth dress and looks were for once 
without significance. 

She ’s a good woman,” said the 
doctor, as he rode away, though she 
wears her womanhood so ungracious- 
ly— as a rough husk rather than a 
fiower. All the same, she ’s laying up 
misery for herself in her devotion to 
this fractious child. I wish I ’d had 
no hand in it!” 

Jane early came to feel what burs 
were in the wind for her. Lola soon 
returned to the world, staring won- 
deringly about; but even in the first 
moment she winced and turned her 
face away from Jane’s eager gaze. 


46 


A Prairie Infanta 


As the girl shrank back into the pil- 
lows, Jane’s lips quivered. 

“ Goose that I am!” she thought. 

Of course my looks are strange to 
her ! It ’d be funny if she took to me 
right off. I aint good-looking. And 
her ma was real handsome!” For 
once in her life Jane sighed a little 
over her own plainness. Children 
love their mothers even when they ’re 
plumb homely!” she encouraged her- 
self. “ Maybe Lola ’ll like me, in .spite 
of my not being well-favored, when 
she finds how much I think of her. ’ ’ 

As time passed, and Lola, with her 
arm in a sling, began to sit up and 
to creep about, there was little in her 
manner to show the wisdom of Jane’s 
cheerful forecast. The girl was still 
and reserved, as if some ancient Aztec 
strain predominated in her over all 
others. She watched the Vigils play- 
ing, the kids gamboling, the magpies 
squabbling; but never a lighter look 
stirred the chill calm of her little, rus- 


47 


A Prairie Infanta 


set-toned features, or the sombre 
depths of her dark, long eyes. 

Jane watched her in despair. I ’m 
afraid you aint very well contented, 
Lola,” she said, one day. ‘‘ Is there 
anything any one can do?” Lola 
was sitting in the August sunshine. 
A little quiver passed through her. 

I want to hear from my father,” 
she said. Has he— written?” Her 
voice was wishful, indeed, and Jane 
colored. 

‘‘ I guess he ’s been .so busy he 
has n’t got round to it yet,” she said, 
lightly. 

I thought he had n’t,” said Lola, 
quickly. ‘‘ I— didn’t expect it quite 
yet. He hates to write. ’ ’ Her accent 
was sharp with anxiety as she added. 

But of course he sends the— board- 
money for me— he would remember 
that?” Evidently she recalled the 
Senora Vigil’s questions and doubts 
on this subject, for there was such in- 
tensity of apprehension in her look 
that jane felt herself full of pain. 

48 


A Prairie Infanta 


Of course he would remember it, 
my dear!” she said, on the instant; 
she consoled her conscience by reflect- 
ing that there was no untruth in her 
words. Although Mr. Keene had .sent 
never a word or sign to Aguilar, it was 
measurably certain that he remem- 
bered his obligations. 

It ’d just about kill that child to 
find out the truth,” thought Jane. 

She looks, anyhow, like she hadn’t 
a friend on earth! I ’m going to let 
her think the money comes as regular 
as clockwork! I d’ know but I ’m 
real glad he don’t send it. Makes me 
feel closer to the little thing, some- 
how.” 

After a while the broken arm was 
pronounced whole again, and the sling 
was taken off. 

You ’re all right now,” said the 
doctor to Lola, and you must run 
out-of-doors and get some Colorado 
tan on your cheeks. Sabef And eat 
more. Get up an appetite. How do 
you say that in Spanish ? Tener huen 
49 


A Prairie Infanta 


diente, eh*? All right. See you do 
it.” 

Lola stood at his knee, solemn and 
mute. She took his jests with an air 
of formal courtesy, barely smiling. 
She had a queer little half-civilized 
look in the neat pigtails which Jane 
considered appropriate to her age, 
and which were so tightly braided as 
fairly to draw up the girl’s eyebrows. 
The emerald fajas had been laid by. 
To garland that viny strip in Lola’s 
locks was beyond Jane’s power. 

What a little icicle it is!” mused 
the doctor. If I had taken a thorn 
from a dog’s foot the creature would 
have been more grateful!” 

Even as he was thinking this, he 
felt a sudden pressure upon his hand. 
Lola had seized it and was kissing the 
big fingers passionately, while she 
cried, ^^Gracias! mil gracias, senor! 
You have made me well! When my 
papa comes he will bless you ! He will 
pour gold over you from head to 
foot!” 


50 


A Prairie Infanta 


That all right, Lola,’’ laughed 
the doctor. He ’ll have to thank 
Miss Jane more than me. She pulled 
you through. Have you thanked her 
yet, Lola?” 

Lola’s face stiffened. But for her 
I should not have been tramped by 
the cattle— I should have been safe in 
my father’s wagon! ’’she thought. I 
— have not, but I will— soon,” she 
said. ‘‘ And your housekeeper, too, 
for the ice-cream, and other things.” 

J ane, in succeeding days, took high 
comfort in the fact that Lola seemed 
to like being out-of-doors, and ap- 
parently amused herself there much 
after the fashion of ordinary chil- 
dren. She had established herself 
over by the ditch, and Jane could see 
her fetching water in a can and mix- 
ing it with a queer kind of adobe 
which she got half-way up the hill. 
That Lola should be engaged with 
mud casas was, indeed, hardly in ac- 
cord with Jane’s experience of the 
girl’s dignity; but that she should be 

4 — A Prairie Infanta. 


A Prairie Infanta 


playing ever so foolishly in a slush of 
clay delighted Jane as being a health- 
ful symptom. 

What you making down yonder, 
honey*?’’ she ventured to ask. 

I am making nothing; I am fin- 
ished,” said Lola. To-morrow you 
shall see my work.” Jane felt taken 
aback. It had been work, then; not 
simple play. She awaited what should 
follow with curious interest. 

Upon the next morning Lola ran 
off through the alfalfa rather excited- 
ly. After a little she reappeared, 
walking slowly, with an air of impor- 
tance. She carried something care- 
fully before her, holding it above the 
reach of the alfalfa’s snatching green 
fingers. 

It was a square pedestal of adobe, 
sun-baked hard as stone, upon which 
sat a queer adobe creature, with a lean 
body and a great bulbous head. This 
personage showed the presence in his 
anatomy of an element of finely 
chopped straw. His slits of eyes were 
52 


A Prairie Infanta 


turned prayerfully upward. Prom 
his widely open mouth hung a thirsty 
mud tongue, and between his knobby 
knees he held an empty bowl, toward 
the filling of which his whole expres- 
sion seemed an invocation. 

‘‘ He is for you,’’ said Lola, beam- 
ing artistic gratification. He is to 
show my thanks for your caring for 
me in my broken-bonedness. He is 
Tesuque, the rain-god. You can let 
your ditches fill with weeds, if you 
like. You won’t need to irrigate your 
vega any more. Tesuque will make 
showers come.” 

Jane trembled with surprised plea- 
sure. The powers ascribed to Tesuque 
were hardly accountable for the grati- 
fication with which she received him. 

I ’ll value him as long as I live!” 
she exclaimed. He— he ’s real hand- 
some!” 

Not handsome,” corrected Lola, 
with a tone of modest pride, but 
good! He makes the rain come. In 
Taos are many Tesuques.” 

53 


A Prairie Infanta 


I reckon it must rain consider- 
able there/ ^ surmised Jane, not un- 
naturally. 

Lola shook her head. No. It ’s 
pretty dry— but it wouldn’t rain at 
all, you see, if it wasn’t for Te- 
suque!” 

This logic was irresistible. Jane 
dwelt smilingly upon it as she set the 
rain-god on the mantel, with a crock- 
ery bowl of yellow daisies to main- 
tain his state. Afterward, a dark, ad- 
der-like compunction glided through 
the flowery expanse of her joy in Te- 
suque, as she wondered if there was 
not something heathenish in his lord- 
ly enshrinement upon a Christian 
mantelpiece. 

Maybe he ’s an idol!” thought 
Jane. Lola,” she asked, perturbed, 
“ you don’t pray to Tersookey, do 
you?” Lola looked horrifled. 

Me ? Maria Santissima! I am of 
the Church! Tesuque is not to pray 
to. I hope you have not been making 
your worship to him. It is like this, 
54 



A Prairie Infanta 

“ HE IS TESUQUE, THE RAIN-GOD.’ ” 
55 



A Prairie Infanta 


senora: You plant the seed and the 
leaf comes; you set out Tesuque and 
rain falls. It is quite simple.’’ 

Jane rested in this easy and con- 
vincing philosophy. She saw the joke 
of Lola’s advice to her not to misplace 
her devotions, and one day she re- 
peated the story to the doctor, show- 
ing him the rain-god. 

‘‘ Do you know,” said the doctor, 
handling Tesuque, that this thing 
is surprisingly well-modeled? The 
Mexicans can do anything with adobe, 
but this has something about it beyond 
the reach of most of them.” 

After this, a pleasanter atmosphere 
spread in Jane’s dwelling. Lola often 
imbent to talk. Sometimes she sewed 
a little on the frocks and aprons, pre- 
paring for her school career. Oftener 
she worked in her roofless pottery by 
the ditch, where many a queer jug 
and vase and bowl, gaudy with ochre 
and Indian red, came into being and 
passed early to dust again, for want 
of firing. Jane found these things 
engrossing. She liked to sit and 
57 


i 


A Prairie Infanta 


watch them grow under Lola’s fin- 
gers, while the purple alfalfa fiowers 
shed abroad sweet odors, and the 
ditch-water sang softly at her feet. 
As she sat thus one afternoon, Ale- 
jandro Vigil came running across the 
field, waving a letter. 

‘‘ ’T is for you, Lolita! ” he cried. 
‘‘ My father read the marks. It is 
from Cripple Creek!” 

‘‘ Oh, give me! give me!” cried 
Lola, flinging down a mud dish. 

Jane had taken the letter. “ It ’s 
for me, dear,” she said, beginning to 
open it. I ’ll read it aloud— ” She 
paused. Her face had a gray color. 

Lola held out her hands in a pas- 
sion of joy and eagerness. What 
does he say ? Oh, hurry ! Oh, let me 
have it!” 

Jane suddenly crushed the letter, 
and her eyes were stern as she with- 
drew it resolutely from Lola’s reach- 
ing fingers. 

No, Lola, no!” she said, in a 
sharp tone. I— can’t let you have 
this letter ! I can ’t ! I can ’t ! ” 

58 



A TRUE BENEFACTRESS 


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CHAPTER THREE 


A TRUE BENEFACTRESS 

L OLA’S breath was suspended 
in amazement. Indignation 
flashed from her eyes. She dropped 
her hands and Jane saw the fingers 
clench. 

‘‘ It is my father’s letter— and you 
keep it from me? You are cruel!” 
said Lola, passionately. 

Jane’s eyes, set on the ground, 
seemed to see there, in fiery type, the 
words of the paper in her grasp. 
Those scrawling lines, roaming from 
blot to blot across the soiled sheet, had 
communicated to Jane no pain of a 
personal sort. So far, indeed, as their 
trend took her on the score of feeling, 
she might even have found something 
satisfying in Mr. Keene’s news, since 
this was merely a statement of his 
61 


A Prairie Infanta 


financial disability. All along Jane 
had been dreading the hour when, in- 
stead of this frank disclosure of 
‘ ‘ hard luck, ’ ’ there should come to her 
a parcel of money. Not to have any 
money to send might conjecturally be 
distressing to Mr. Keene: but Jane 
felt that he would be able to endure 
his embarrassment better than she 
herself any question of barter re- 
specting Lola. 

The very thought of being paid for 
what .she had so freely given hurt 
Jane. Without realizing its coldness 
and emptiness, her life had been truly 
void of human warmth before the lit- 
tle, lonely girl stole in to fill it with 
her piteous, proud presence. A hap- 
pier child, with more childish ways, 
might not so fully have compassed 
Jane’s awakening; for this had been 
in proportion to the needs of the one 
who so forlornly made plea for en- 
trance. Having once thrown wide the 
door of her heart, J ane had begun to 
understand the blessedness that lies 
62 


A Prairie Infanta 


in generosity. Lola might never care 
for her, indeed ; but to Lola she owed 
the impulse of loving self-bestowal, 
which is as shining sunlight in the 
bosom. 

Mr. Keene wrote that the claim he 
had been working had proved value- 
less. He expected better luck next 
time; but just now he could not do 
as he had intended for Lola; and in 
view of his unsettled circumstances 
he thought it might be well if Miss 
Combs could place the girl in some 
family where her services would be 
acceptable. 

“ Life,” he wrote, was at best a 
rough proposition,” and it would 
doubtless be good for Lola, who had 
sundry faults of temper, to learn this 
fact early. For the present she would 
have to give up all idea of going to 
school. Mr. Keene would be sorry if 
the prospect displeased his daughter, 
but people couldn’t have everything 
their own way in this world. 

Such words as these Jane instinc- 

63 


A Prairie Infanta 


tively knew would fall crushingly 
upon Lola, and leave her in a sorry 
plight of abject, hardening thought. 
Therefore, steeling herself to bear the 
girPs misinterpretation, she said, 
‘‘Lola, your father would nT want 
you to see this letter. It ’s on busi- 
ness.’’ 

“ Does he say I ’m not to see it?” 
asked Lola. 

Jane’s brows twisted painfully. 
“ No,” she said, “ but—” 

Lola turned away. Every line of 
her figure was eloquent of grievance. 
She walked off without a glance to ap- 
prise her of the anguish in Jane’s 
face. Slowly Jane went toward the 
house; whereupon Alejandro Vigil, 
who had continued an interested spec- 
tator, followed Lola to the ditch. 

“ If thou hadst wept, she would 
have given thee the letter,” he sug- 
gested. “ My mother, she always 
gives up to us when we weep loudly. 
A still baby gets no milk,” said Ale- 


64 


A Prairie Infanta 


jandro, wisely, as he hugged his bare 
knees. 

I am no baby!’’ retorted Lola. 
Nevertheless her voice was husky, 
and Alejandro watched her anxiously. 

It ’s no good to cry now,” he ad- 
vised her. She ’s gone into the 
house.” 

^‘Tonto! Do you think I want her 
to see me % ’ ’ wept Lola. ‘ ^ She is hard 
and cruel. O my father ! ’ ’ 

Come over and tell my mother 
about it!” urged the boy, troubled. 

You are Mexican like us, no? Your 
mother was Mexican? Come! My 
mother will say what is best to do.” 

Lola listened. She let herself be 
dragged up. An adviser might speak 
some word of wisdom. Come, then,” 
she agreed. 

But Senora Vigil, on hearing the 
story, only groaned and sighed. 

These Americans have the heart 
of ice!” she said. Doubtless there 
was money in the letter and she did 
not want you to know. Serafita, leave 
65 


A Prairie Infanta 


thy sister alone, or I will beat thee! 
It will be best, Lolita, to say little. A 
close month catches no flies.’’ 

I may not stay here with you?” 
asked Lola. 

^‘Alas, no, little pigeon! ” mourned 
the senora. ‘‘ In the cage where thy 
father has put thee thou must stay! 
But come and tell me everything. 
This shall be thy house when thou art 
in trouble!” and thus defining the 
limits of her hospitality, she made a 
gesture toward the mud walls on 
which strings of goat meat were dry- 
ing in a sanguinary fringe. 

Autumn fell bright on the foot- 
hills. The plains blazed with yellow 
flowers which seemed to run in 
streams of molten gold from every 
canon, and linger in great pools on the 
flats and line all the ditches. Ricks 
of green and silver rose all along the 
Apishapa. Alfalfa was purple to the 
last crop, and an air of affluence per- 
vaded everything. 

The town was thronged with ranch- 

66 


A Prairie Infanta 


ers, coming in to trade ; the mine had 
started np for the winter. Men who 
had prospected for precious metals 
all summer in the mountains now 
bundled their pots and pans and 
blankets back to shelter for the win- 
ter; the long-eared burros, lost in 
great rolls of bedding, stood about the 
tipple awaiting the result of their 
masters’ interviews with the mine 
boss, concerning work and the occu- 
pancy of any shack ” that might 
still be empty. 

Now, too, the bell of the red-brick 
school clamored loudly of mornings; 
and dark, taciturn Mexican children, 
and paler, noisier children from the 
mining end of town, bubbled out of 
every door. Seven Vigils obeyed the 
daily summons, clad, boy and girl, in 
cotton stuff of precisely the hue of 
their skin. Bobbing through the gate, 
one after another, they were like a 
family of little dun-colored prairie- 
dogs, of a hue with their adobe dwell- 
ing, shy and brown and bright-eyed. 
67 


A Prairie Infanta 


Among them Lola had an effect of 
tropical brilliancy, by reason of the 
red frock with which Jane had pro- 
vided her. There were red ribbons 
also in Lola’s braided hair; and the 
girl, although still aware of bitter 
wrongs, was sensible of being pleased 
with her raiment. More than once on 
her way to school that first day she 
looked at the breadths of her scarlet 
cashmere with a gratified eye; and 
catching her at this. Ana Vigil had 
sighed disapprovingly, saying, ‘‘ It is 
too good for every day— that dress.” 

It is n ’t too good for me ! ’ ’ fiashed 
back Lola. My father can do what 
he likes!” 

True,” said Ana, since he has 
a gold-mine. But even if I were rich, 
I should fear that the saints might 
punish me for wearing to school my 
best clothes. I w^ould wish to win 
their good-will by wearing no finery,” 
said Ana, piously. She was a plump 
girl, with eyes like splinters of coal in 
her suave brown face ; despite the ex- 
68 


A Prairie Infanta 


treme softness of her voice, these glit- 
tering splinters rested with no gentle 
ray on Lola. 

Indeed, Jane’s pride in having her 
charge well-dressed operated largely 
against the girl’s popularity with oth- 
ers of her mates than Ana. Primarily 
Lola’s air of hauteur provoked re- 
sentment ; but hauteur in poor attire 
would have been only amusing, while 
in red cashmere it was felt to be a 
serious matter, entailing upon every 
one the sense of a personal affront. 
Lola’s quickness of retort was also 
against her. The swift flash of her 
eye, the sudden quiver of her lip, af- 
forded continual gratification to such 
as had it in mind to effect her discom- 
posure. 

‘‘ They do not love you too well, Lo- 
lita,” said Ana Vigil, sadly. They 
say you have a sharp tongue. They 
say you are too well pleased with 
yourself. Me, I tell you what I hear 
because I am your friend.” 

‘‘ So long a tongue as yours, Ana, 

5 — A Prairie Infanta, 


A Prairie Infanta 


weaves a short web!’’ growled Ale- 
jandro, with a masculine distrust of 
his sister’s friendly assumptions. 

Lola knows if I speak truth,” re- 
turned Ana, tranquilly. 

Lola maintained an impassive 
front, but she was hurt. The little 
tricks and taunts of her schoolfellows 
tormented her deeply. She had late- 
ly relapsed into the stolid indiffer- 
ence native to her blood, and this was 
her best shield, had she only known 
it, although it, too, for a time left her 
open to attack. For when she en- 
cased herself in cold silence, and 
stalked home with lifted head and un- 
seeing eyes, often a little throng of 
Mexican children would walk behind 
her, imitating her stately gait and 
calling mockingly, ^^Ea! ea! See the 
madamisela! See the princess! She 
is sister to the king— that one ! Vah! 
vah! vah!^^ 

And mingling their voices they 
would sing, ^‘Infanta! Infanta Lo~ 
lita!^^ until Lola, stung to rage, 
70 


A Prairie Infanta 


turned upon them wildly; whereat 
their delighted cries served to send 
her flying homeward. 

I guess not even Squire Baca’s 
girls nor Edith May J onas had better 
things than you,” said Jane, unaware 
of all this. Her own garments re- 
mained things of the baldest utility, 
but the village .seamstress was kept 
busy feather-stitching and beribbon- 
ing articles for Lola’s wear. 

In these things Jane developed a 
most prodigal pride, freely expending 
upon them the little patrimony which 
had been put in the Trinidad bank 
against her old age. Her usual good 
judgment quite failed her; and she 
who, patternless and guideless, slashed 
brown denim fearlessly into uncouth 
vestures for herself, now had a pulse 
of trepidation at laying the tissue- 
paper model of some childish gar- 
ment for Lola upon a length of dainty 
wool. 

Maybe,” said Lola, “ the others 


71 


A Prairie Infanta 


would like me better if my father 
didn’t get me so many things.” 

Jane’s eyes shone with a fierce 
light. 

Don’t they like you?” she de- 
manded, harshly. 

‘‘Didn’t you hear them calling 
‘ infanta ’ after me just now?” 

“ Infanta— is it anything fcad?” 
Jane’s voice was so wroth that Lola 
laughed. 

“ It means princess.” 

“ Oh!” said Jane, mollified. “ If 
it ’d been anything else, I ’d have 
gone straight down to see the mar- 
shal!” Lola flushed a little. She 
thought, “ How kind she is! If I 
could only forget— about that letter!” 

The dislike of the Mexican children 
abated with time. They even came 
to admire Lola’s quickness. She went 
above them in class— yes! but also she 
went above the Americans! The lit- 
tle Mexicans, aware of a certain men- 
tal apathy, had not enviously regard- 
ed the exploits of the “smart” Ameri- 
72 


A Prairie Infanta 


cans. If these others went up,’’ 
what did it matter ? All one could do 
if one were Mexican was to accept de- 
feat with dimity, and reflect upon the 
fact that things would be different if 
Spanish and not English were the 
language of the school. 

When Lola, however, one of them- 
selves by reason of her color and her 
fluency in their idiom, displayed an 
ability to master those remorseless ob- 
scurities of spelling and arithmetic 
which had .seemed sufficient to de- 
throne reason in any but a Saxon 
mind, then the peon children began 
to find some personal satisfaction in 
her achievements. 

Whenever Lola went above Jimmy 
Adkins, the mine boss’s boy, and 
Edith May Jonas, the liveryman’s 
only daughter, every Mexican face 
recorded a slow smile of triumph. 

^Sta ^nenoV^ they would whisper, 
watching Edith May, who upon such 
occasions was wont to enliven things 
by bursting into tears, and who com- 
73 


A Prairie Infanta 


monly brought upon the following 
day a note from her mother, stating 
that Edith May must be excused for 
missing in spelling because she had 
not been at all well and had misunder- 
stood the word. 

The next two years also mitigated 
much of the constraint which had 
marked Miss Combs’s relations with 
Lola. After the episode of the letter, 
Lola never asked news of her father. 
Insensibly she came to understand 
that if he wrote at all he wrote sel- 
dom, and solely upon the matter of 
her expenses. And naturally she 
ceased clinging warmly to the thought 
of his love for her. His silence and 
absence were not spurs to affection, 
although she dwelt gratefully upon 
the fact that he should lavish so much 
upon her. 

Jane’s money was lessening, but 
none of Lola’s wishes had as yet been 
baffled. The girl had a sort of bar- 
baric love of brightness and softness ; 
and one day, as she looked over some 
74 


A Prairie Infanta 


fabrics for which Jane, spurred by 
the approach of the vacation and the 
fact that Lola was to have a part in 
the closing exercises of school, had 
sent to Denver, the girl said suddenly. 

How good my father is to me, tia!’’ 

Long before, she had asked Jane 
what she should call her, and Jane 
had said, Maybe you better call 
me aunt.’’ 

“ I will do it in Mexican, then,” 
said Lola. It sounds more ripe.” 
She meant mellow, no doubt. Now, 
as she fingered the pretty muslin, she 
seemed to gather resolution to speak 
of something which had its difficul- 
ties. Tia/^ she pursued, ‘‘ he is 
well off— my father?” 

Jane’s voice had rather a feigned 
lightness as she replied, ‘‘You have 
everything you want, don’t you?” No 
one but herself knew that for some 
time she had been paying Mr. Keene 
a monthly stipend. He had written 
that Lola ought not any longer to be 
giving her services Just for board. So 
75 


A Prairie Infanta 


great a girl must be very bandy about 
a house ; and as luck still evaded him, 
he confessed that Lola’s earnings 
would considerably help him out.” 

Jane had not combated his views. 
Many Mexican children younger 
than Lola earned a little tending the 
herds and helping about the fields. 
They were usually boys; but Jane did 
not dwell on this point. She had 
never clearly realized, on her own 
part, those distinctions in labor 
which appertain to the sexes ; she had 
herself always done everything that 
had to be done, whether it were cook- 
ing or plowing. If she had any choice, 
it was for pursuits of the field. 
Therefore, without comment, she had 
accepted Mr. Keene’s theories as just, 
and began to pay him what he said 
would be about right.” 

‘‘ Because,” said Lola, I want 
you to ask him something when you 
write. I am over fourteen now. 
There isn’t much more for me to 
learn in this school. Senor Juarez and 
76 


A Prairie Infanta 


Miss Belton both tell me I ought to go 
to Pueblo. Edith May Jonas is go- 
ing. I should like to study many 
things— drawing, for instance. They 
say I ought to study that. My mother 
always said she hoped I would have 
a chance to learn. And my father 
used to say, ‘ Oh, yes!’ that he would 
soon have money for everything. And 
now he has ! Will you ask him ? ’ ’ 
Jane was dusting the mantel on 
which Tesuque still sat open-mouthed, 
with his bowl. The room had lost its 
former barren aspect. There was now 
a carpet, while muslin shades softened 
the glare of the Colorado sun and the 
view of the sterile hills. Geraniums 
bloomed on the window-sills, and 
some young cottonwoods grew green- 
ly at the door. The scarlet Navajo 
blanket, which had been Lola’s inheri- 
tance from the prairie-schooner, was 
spread across a couch, and gave a final 
note of warmth and comfort to the 
low room, now plastered in adobe 
from ceiling to floor. Everything 
77 


A Prairie Infanta 


that had been done was for Lola’s 
sake, who loved warmth and color, as 
do all Southrons. 

Tesuque alone, divinely invariable 
amid so much change, now seemed to 
wink the eye at Jane’s uncertainty. 
For Jane knew that there was not 
enough money in the bank to pay for 
a year’s schooling at Pueblo. So far 
she knew, yet she said simply, I can 
ask him. ’ ’ 

If Lola wanted to go to Pueblo, she 
must go. It would be a pity if Edith 
May J onas should have better school- 
ing than Lola, thought Jane. And as 
she pondered, it came forcibly to her 
that money need not be lacking; she 
could mortgage her house. She shut 
her eyes to all future difficulties which 
this must involve, and, upon a cer- 
tain June day, set resolutely out to 
see if the doctor were willing to make 
the loan. 

The doctor, sitting in the little office 
which he had built in the corner of his 


78 


A Prairie Infanta 


shady yard, scowled over his glasses 
as he listened. 

“Yon ’re making a mistake,” he 
said, having heard all, “ to let Lola 
believe that her father is providing 
for her. I know you began it all with 
a view to charitable ends ; but he who 
does evil that good may come sets his 
foot in a crooked path, of which none 
can see the close.” 

“ I didn’t want to see her break- 
ing her heart.” 

“ I know, but I do not believe it ’s 
ever well to compound and treat with 
wrong. If you ’ll be advised, you ’ll 
tell her the whole truth at once.” 

Jane sat bolt upright before him. 
Her arms were folded across her but- 
ternut waist, and under the man’s hat 
a grim resolution seemed to be em- 
bodying itself. 

“ She wouldn’t go to school at 
Pueblo if I told her— nor feel like she 
had any home— or anything in the 
world. And I aint going to tell her ! ’ ’ 

“ Miss Jane, Miss Jane, don’t you 

79 


A Prairie Infanta 


see you ’re doing the girl a real in- 
jury in letting her regard you, her 
true benefactor, merely as the agent 
of her father’s generosity? You have 
simply sustained and encouraged her 
worst traits. She would n ’t have been 
so exacting, so resentful, so easily 
provoked if she had known all along 
that she was only a poor little pen- 
sioner on your bounty. The lesson of 
humility would have gone far with 
her. No, Miss Jane, it would n’t have 
hurt her to be humbled. It won’t 
now!” 

“ I don’t believe it ever does any 
one any good to be humbled 1 ’ ’ main- 
tained J ane, stoutly and with reason. 
‘‘ Especially if it ’s a poor, frail little 
soul that aint got no mother! I did 
what I thought best, though I can’t 
afford it no way in the world! To 
prune and dress a lie aint going to 
make it grow into a truth ! ” She rose. 
‘‘ I guess I ’ll see if Henry Jonas ’ll 
be willing to take that mortgage!” 

‘‘I’m going to do it myself!” 

80 


A Prairie Infanta 


roared the doctor. “ I don’t want 
J onas to own all the property in Agui- 
lar!” Generosity and anger swayed 
him confusedly; but as he watched 
J ane trudging down under the Daunt- 
less ’s tipple he became clear enough 
to register with himself a vow. “ Lola 
has got to know the truth!” he de- 
clared. ‘‘ Maybe it ’s none of my 
business, but all the same she ’s going 
to know it, and know it now!” And 
he got up, grimly resolute. 


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CHAPTER FOUR 


WISE IMPULSES 

T he next day was the last of the 
school term, and it afforded the 
doctor an opportunity for carrying 
out his resolve. There was a base of 
sound reason in his purposed action. 
It might give the girl pain, indeed, to 
hear what he felt impelled to tell her ; 
it is not pleasant to have a broken 
bone set, yet the end is a good one. 
The doctor felt that Lola’s mind held 
a smoldering distrust of Jane, which 
not even the consciousness of Jane’s 
love could dispel. 

The girl, without directly formu- 
lating so strong a case against Jane, 
obscurely held her accountable for 
that division from her father which 
she deplored. Doubtless it was affec- 
tion which had caused Jane to ask 

6 — A Prairie Infanta, q - 


A Prairie Infanta 


Mr. Keene to leave his child behind. 
Affection also might have jealously 
deterred Jane from giving Lola her 
father’s infrequent letters. But af- 
fection cannot excuse what is un- 
worthy; and Lola’s thoughts ran 
vaguely with a distrust which did 
something to embitter the wholesome 
tides of life. 

I am right to put an end to 
Miss Combs’s unwise benevolence,” 
thought the doctor, as he tied his 
horse outside the schoolhouse. 

Throngs of white-frocked girls 
were chattering about the yard. Rows 
of Mexican children squatted silent 
and stolid against the red walls, un- 
moved by those excitements of closing 
day which stirred their American 
mates to riotous glee. The wives of 
the miners and town merchants were 
arriving in twos and threes. Gaunt 
Mexican women, holding quiet babies 
in their looped rehozos, stood about, 
hardly ever speaking. 

Senora Vigil, more lavishly built 

86 


A Prairie Infanta 


than the rest of her countrywomen 
and gayer of port than they, moved 
from group to group, talking cheer- 
fully. Jane also awaited the opening 
of the schoolhouse door, watching the 
scene with interest and having no con- 
ception of herself as an object of note, 
in her elderly black bonnet and short 
jean skirt. 

Presently Senor Juarez, the Mexi- 
can master, appeared. The bell in 
the slate dome rang loudly, and the 
throng filed indoors. There was the 
usual array of ceremonies appropri- 
ate to occasions like this. Small boys 
spoke pieces,’’ which they forgot, 
being audibly prompted, while the 
audience experienced untold pangs of 
sympathy and foreboding. Little be- 
ribboned girls exhibited their skill in 
dialogue, and read essays and filed 
through some patriotic drill, to which 
a forest of tiny flags gave splendid 
emphasis at impressive junctures. 

Then Edith May Jonas, solemn 
with anxiety and importance, rose to 
87 


A Prairie Infanta 


sing. She was a plain, flaxen-haired 
girl, with a Teutonic cast of feature 
and a thin voice; but every one, be- 
numbed with speechless admiration 
of her blue silk dress, derived from 
her performance an impression of 
surpassing beauty and unbounded tal- 
ent. 

‘ ‘ Caramba! but she is like a vision ! ’ ’ 
sighed Senora Vigil in Jane’s ear. 

Look at Senora Jonas, the mother! 
Well uiay she weep tears of pride! 
She is a great lady— Senora Jonas. 
Just now she have condescended to 
say to me, ‘ ’Ow-de-do?’ and me, I 
bow low. ^ A los pies de V. senora!^ 
I say. Ay Dios! if I but had a child 
with yellow hair, like the Seiiorita 
Edith May ! Que chula!’’ 

“ Sh!” breathed Jane. There’s 
my Lola on the platform!” 

Lola had grown tall in the past 
year. She was fairer than the Mexi- 
cans, although not fair in the fashion 
of Edith May, but with a faint citron 
hue which, better than pink and 
88 


A Prairie Infanta 


white, befitted the extreme darkness 
of her hair and eyes. She wore a 
dress of thin white, and around her 
slender neck was a curious old strand 
of turquoise beads which had been 
found carefully hidden away in the 
Mexican trunk. There was an air of 
simple reserve about her which 
touched the doctor. She was only a 
child for all her stately looks, and he 
began to hate his task. 

Lola read a little address which had 
been assigned to her as a representa- 
tive of the highest class. She read 
the farewell lines almost monotonous- 
ly, without effect, without infiection, 
almost coldly. Yet as he listened, the 
doctor had an impression of vital 
warmth underlying the restraint of 
the girl’s tone— an impression of feel- 
ing that lay far below the surface, la- 
tent and half-suspected. 

“ There is something there to be 
reckoned with,” he decided. “’But 
what? Is it a noble impulse which 
will spring to life in rich gratitude 

89 


A Prairie Infanta 


when I tell her my story Or will a 
mere hurt, passionate vanity rise to 
overwhelm us all in its acrid swell ? I 
shall soon know.’’ 

In the buzz of gaiety and gossip 
which succeeded the final reading, he 
approached Lola and beckoned her 
away from the crowd. She came run- 
ning to him smiling, saying, Se- 
nor ! ’ ’ 

‘‘ I want to say something to you, 
my dear. Come here where it ’s 
quiet.” The doctor was finding the 
simplicity and trustfulness of her 
gaze very trying. “ Lola,” he con- 
tinued, desperately, I— you must 
listen to me.” Just at this point 
something struck against his arm, and 
turning irritably, he saw Jane. 

What ’s all this? ” said .she, pla- 
cidly. What are you saying to make 
my little girl so wide-eyed ? Remem- 
ber, she has a fierce old guardian— 
one that expects every one to ’tend to 
his own affairs ! ’ ’ Jane spoke jesting- 
ly, but the doctor knew he was 
90 


A Prairie Infanta 


worsted. Jane had been watching 
him. 

‘‘ But, interposed Lola, the 
doctor was just going to tell me some- 
thing very important!” 

“ He was maybe going to tell you 
that you are going to Pueblo next 
fall ! Yes, honey, it ’s all fixed 1 ” She 
turned a joyous, defiant face on the 
doctor, who cast his hands abroad as 
if he washed them of the whole af- 
fair; while Lola, beaming with plea- 
sure, rushed ofE to tell the news to 
Senor Juarez. 

‘‘You ’ll regret this!”, said the doc- 
tor, somehow feeling glad of his own 
failure. 

“Well, she won’t!” cried Jane, 
watching Lola’s flight with tender 
eyes. 

“ Sometime she is going to find out 
all this deceit!” he added. 

“ I know,” said Jane. “ I know. 
And then she ’ll quit trusting me for- 
ever. But if I ’m willing to stand it, 
nobody else need to worry.” With 
91 


A Prairie Infanta 


this tacit rebuke she left him, and 
thereafter the doctor respected her 
wishes. 

A month or .so after Lola’s depar- 
ture northward, Jane’s solicitude was 
enlivened by an event of startling im- 
portance. She was notified by the 
Dauntless Company that two entries, 
the fourth and fifth east, had entered 
her property, in which she had never 
suspected the presence of coal, and 
that the owners were prepared to ne- 
gotiate with her suitable terms for the 
right of working the vein in question. 

When the matter of royalties was 
settled and several hundred dollars 
paid to Jane’s account for coal al- 
ready taken out, she had a sudden 
rush of almost tearful joy. Every 
month would come to her, while the 
coal lasted, a determinate sum of 
money. She regarded the fact in a 
sort of ecstasy, and resolved upon 
many things. 

First she banished from her house 
the shadow of the mortgage. Then, 
92 


A Prairie Infanta 


glowing with enterprise, she proceed- 
ed to extend and embellish her prop- 
erty in a way which speedily set the 
town by the ears, and aroused every 
one to dark prophecies as to what 
must happen when her money should 
all be gone, and nothing left her but 
to face poverty in the palatial five- 
room dwelling now growing up 
around the pine homestead of the 
past. 

Lola liked adobe houses; and for- 
tunately Enrique Diaz, the black- 
smith, had a fine lot of adobes which 
he had made before frost, and put un- 
der cover against a possible extension 
of his shop, ‘Ho-morrow or some time 
after a while.’’ These Jane bought, 
and deftly the chocolate walls arose in 
her vega, crowned finally with a crim- 
son roof, which could be seen two 
miles off at Lynn. There was a porch, 
too, with snow-white pillars, and an 
open fireplace, all tiled with adobe, in 
which might blaze fires of pinon wood, 
full of resin and burning as nothing 
93 


A Prairie Infanta 


else can burn save driftwood, sodden 
with salt and oil and the mystery of 
old ocean. 

Then, after a little, there arrived in 
town a vaulted box, in which the dull- 
est fancy might conjecture a piano. 
Greatly indeed were heads shaken. 
If doom were easily invoked, Jane 
would hardly have lived to unpack 
the treasure and help to lift it up the 
porch steps. 

^^Por Dios!’^ gasped Ana Vigil. 

It must have cost fifty dollars ! j^d 
for what good, senora'?’^ 

Lola ’s taking music-lessons,’’ 
said Jane. Her and Edith May 
Jonas is learning a duet. I want she 
should be able to go right on practis- 
ing.” 

^ ^ Ah ! ’ ’ said Ana, innocently. ‘ ‘ She 
will not say your house now is ‘ ugly, ’ 
will she And you, senora, shall you 
get a longer dress and do your hair 
up, so she will not say of you like she 
did, ^ How queer’?” 

Jane looked at Ana. Surely she 
94 


A Prairie Infanta 


could not mean to be ill-tempered— 
Ana, with a face as broad and placid 
as a standing pool ? No, no, Ana was 
too simple to wish to pain any one! 
Yet as J ane dwelt upon Ana’s queries, 
it came slowly to Jane that certain 
changes in herself might be well. 

She obeyed this wise, if late, im- 
pulse, and when Lola came home in 
June she had her reward. The girl 
cried out with surprise as she beheld 
on the platform at Lynn that tall fig- 
ure in a soft gray gown, fashioned 
with some pretensions to the mode, 
but simple and dignified as befitted 
Jane’s stature and look. There was a 
bonnet to match, too elderly for 
Jane’s years, and of a Quakerish 
form. But this was less the cause for 
the general difference in Jane’s as- 
pect than the fact that her brown hair, 
parted smoothly on the broad, benig- 
nant brow, now had its ends tucked 
up in a neat knot. 

^^Tia! tia!’’ exclaimed Lola, herself 
glowing like a prairie-rose, as she 
95 


A Prairie Infanta 


dashed out of the train. ‘‘ What have 
you done*? You are good to look at! 
Your hair— oh, asonibro!^^ 

But when the white burros of the 
mail wagon, wildly skimming the 
plains, brought them in sight of the 
new house, Lola’s joy turned white 
on her cheeks, and she clutched Jane’s 
arm. 

‘^Tia— OUT house! It is gone— 
gone!” 

Then was Jane’s time to laugh with 
sheer happiness, to throw open gate 
and door and usher her guest into 
the old room where Tesuque sat and 
the Navajo blanket still covered the 
couch as of yore, and nothing was al- 
tered except that now other rooms 
opened brightly on all sides, and in 
one a piano displayed its white teeth 
in beaming welcome. 

Lola’s blank face, whereon every 
moment printed a new delight, was to 
Jane a sight hardly to be matched. 
The satisfaction grew also with time, 
as the piano awoke to such strains 

96 


A Prairie Infanta 


as Lola had mastered, and people 
strolled up from the village ways to 
listen, and, to Jane’s deep gratifica- 
tion, to praise the musician. The 
Mexicans came in throngs, filling the 
air with a chorus of ^^Caspitas!’^ and 
^^Caramhas!^’ None of them called 
Lola Infanta nowadays unless it 
were in a spirit of friendly pleasan- 
try ; and she herself had lost much of 
the air which had brought this con- 
temptuous honor upon her childish 
head. 

“ She is Mexican— yes!” the}^ nod- 
ded to one another, deriving much 
simple satisfaction from the circum- 
stance. For was it not provocative 
of racial pride that one of their com- 
patriots should be able to make tunes 
—actual tunes!— issue from those 
keys which responded to their own 
tentative touches merely with thin 
shrieks or a dull, rumbling note ? 

Lolita is like she was,” remarked 
Alejandro Vigil to his sister on the 
morning of the Fourth of July, as 
97 


A Prairie Infanta 


they wandered around the common 
beyond the arroyo. 

This space of desert had an air of 
festive import, for unwonted celebra- 
tions of the day were forward. A pa- 
vilion roofed with green boughs had 
been built for the occasion, on the 
skirts of an oval course which was to 
be the ground of sundry feats of cow- 
boy horsemanship, and of a foot-race 
between Piedro Cordova and the 
celebrated Valentino Cortes. There 
would be music, also, before long. Al- 
ready the sound of a violin in process 
of tuning rang cheerfully through the 
open. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence was to be read by the lawyer, 
who might be seen in the pavilion wip- 
ing his brow in anticipation of this 
exciting duty. A tribe of little girls, 
who were to sing national airs, were 
even now climbing into the muslin- 
draped seats of the lumber-wagon al- 
lotted them. 

It was to be a great day for Agui- 
lar! People from Santa Clara and 

98 


A Prairie Infanta 


Hastings and Gulnare were arriving 
in all manner of equipages. Mexican 
vehicles made a solid stockade along 
the west of the track. In the upper 
benches of the pavilion were ranged 
the flower and chivalry of the town— 
the families of the mine boss, the liv- 
eryman, the lawyer, the schoolmas- 
ter and several visiting personages. 
Jane, in her gray gown, was among 
them ; beside her sat Lola, with Edith 
May J onas. 

^^And did you think going away to 
school would make her different?” in- 
quired Ana of her brother. “ What 
should it do to her, ’Andro? Make 
her white like Miss Jonas? Vaya! 
Lola is only a Mexican!” 

She is not ashamed to be one, 
either!” cried Alejandro, accepting 
Ana’s tacit imputation of some in- 
feriority in their race. ‘^And she is 
white enough,” he added, regarding 
Lola as she sat smiling and talking, 
with the boughy eaves making little 

99 


Ufa 


A Prairie Infanta 


shadows across the rim of her broad 
straw hat. 

Who said she was ashamed?’’ 
asked Ana, with suspicious suavity. 
‘‘You hear words that have not been 
spoken. I tell you of your faults, 
hermano mio, because I love you!” 

Alejandro turned off in a sulk, and, 
leaving Ana to her own resources, 
went toward the place where the 
ponies and burros were tethered. It 
was comparatively lonely here, and 
Alejandro began to make friends with 
a disconsolate burro who was bewail- 
ing his fate in a series of lamentable 
sounds. 

“ Ha, hrihon!’^ he said, pinching 
the burro’s ears. “ What is the use 
of wasting breath ? Siis, sus, amigo 
The burro began to buck and Alejan- 
dro stepped back. As he did so he 
saw approaching him from behind the 
wagons a man in tattered garments, 
with a hat dragged over his eyes, and 
a great mass of furzy yellow beard. 

“Here, you!” said this person. 

100 





A Prairie Infanta 

“ ‘ I HOPED YOU ’D BE ABLE TO LEND ME A HAND.’ ” 

101 








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A Prairie Infanta 


Oh, you’re Mexican! Yalo veo—^^ 

‘‘ Me, I spik English all ri’l” re- 
torted Alejandro, with dignity. 
‘‘ Spik English if you want. I it on- 
nerstan ^ ^ ^ 

“I see. Well, look here!” He 
withdrew a folded paper from his 
pocket. I want you to take this note 
over to that lady in the gray dress in 
the pavilion. Sahe ‘ pavilion ’ % All 
right! Don’t let any one else see it. 
Just hand it to her quietly and tell 
her the gentleman ’s waiting.” 

Alejandro took the note reluctant- 
ly. Why should he put himself at the 
behest of this vagahundo who im- 
peached his English The man, how- 
ever, had an eye on him. It was an 
eye which Alejandro felt to be impell- 
ing. He decided to take the note to 
the lady in gray. 

Jane, as Alejandro smuggled the 
paper into her hand, caught a glimpse 
of the writing and felt her heart sink. 
Lola and Edith May J onas were whis- 

7 — A. Prairie Infanta. 


103 


A Prairie Infanta 


pering together. They had not no- 
ticed Alejandro. 

The man is waiting,” said the 
boy, in her ear. 

Jane touched Lola. Keep my 
seat, dear,” she said. ‘‘ Some one 
wants to speak to me.” And she fol- 
lowed Alejandro across the field. 

Alejandro’s vagabitndo came for- 
ward to meet her with an air of light 
cordiality. His voice was the voice 
which had greeted her first from the 
steps of the prairie-schooner in which 
Lola’s mother lay dead. 

‘‘It ’s me! ” conceded Mr. Keene, 
pleasantly. “ In rather poor shape, 
as you see. It ’s always darkest 
before dawn! You ’re considerable 
changed, ma’am— and to the better. 
I would hardly have known you. Is 
that girl in the big white hat Lola? 
Well, well ! Now, ma’am^ I ’ll tell you 
why I ’m here. ’ ’ 

He proceeded to speak of an oppor- 
tunity of immediate fortune which 
was open to him, after prolonged dis- 
104 


A Prairie Infanta 


aster, if only the sum of five hundred 
dollars might be forthcoming. A 
friend of his in Pony Gulch had sent 
him glowing reports of the region. 

All I want is a grub-stake, ’’ said Mr. 
Keene, and I ’m sure to win!’’ 

I have n ’t that much money in the 
world!” said Jane. 

Keene sighed. Well, I hoped 
you ’d be able to lend me a hand, but 
if you can’t, you can’t! There seems 
to be nothing for me but to go back 
North, and try to earn something to 
start on. I guess it ’d be well for me 
to take Lola along. She ’s nearly 
grown now, and they need help the 
worst kind in the miners’ boarding- 
house where I stay up in Cripple. I 
told the folks that keep it— I owe ’em 
considerable— that I ’d bring back my 
daughter with me to assist ’em in the 
dining-room, and they said all right, 
that ’d suit ’em. Wages up there are 
about the highest thing in sight. 
Equal to the altitude. And it ’ll give 
me a chance to look round.” 

105 


A Prairie Infanta 


Jane was staring at him. You 
would do thatr’ she breathed. 
“You ’d take that delicate girl up 
there to wait on a lot of rough min- 
ers ? I ’ve worked for her and loved 
her and sheltered her from every- 
thing! She ’s not fit for any such 
life! She sha’n’t go! ’’ 

Keene had been touched at first. At 
Jane’s last assertion, however, he be- 
gan to look sulky. 

“ Well, I guess it ’s for me to say 
what she shall do!” he signified. “ I 
guess it ’s not against the law or the 
prophets for a daughter to assist her 
father when he ’s in difficulties. And 
Lola ’ll recognize her duty. I ’ll just 
go over yonder to the pavilion, ma’am, 
and see what she says.” 


106 


DESTINY PRESSES 




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CHAPTEE FIVE 


DESTINY PRESSES 

J ANE stood confounded. Her 
aghast mind, following Mr. 
Keene’s project, seemed to see 
him rakishly ascending the pavilion 
steps, among a wondering throng, and 
making way to Lola as she sat, happy 
and honored, with her friends. J ane 
had a sharp prevision of Lola’s face 
when her father should appear before 
her, so different from the tender ideal 
of him which she had cherished, so in- 
tent upon himself, so bent upon shat- 
tering with his first word to his child 
all those visions of imselfish kindness 
and generosity which had made her 
thoughts, of him beautiful. 

109 


A Prairie Infanta 


Lola would go with him. She would 
rise and leave her home, friends and 
happy prospects to follow him to 
whatever life he might judge best, 
however rough, however wild. In or- 
dinary circumstances Jane could not 
deny to herself that this course would 
be the right course for a daughter; 
that such an one would do well to suc- 
cor a father’s failings, to add hope to 
his despondency and love to the miti- 
gation of his trials. But Mr. Keene 
was not despondent, nor were his 
trials of a sort which might not easily 
be tempered by something like indus- 
try on his own part. He was frankly 
idle. He loved better than simple 
work the precarious excitement of 
prospecting— an occupation which, 
except in isolated and accidental in- 
stances, cannot be pursued to any 
good save with the aid of science and 
capital. 

Camp life might not be bad for Mr. 
Keene ; but that it would be good for a 


110 


A Prairie Infanta 


girl so young and sensitive to every 
impression as Lola, Jane doubted. 

‘‘ I got to consider what ’s best for 
her,’’ thought Jane, while Keene him- 
self was beginning once more to sym- 
pathize with the silent misery in her 
face. 

“ I never had no idea you thought 
so much of Lola!” he exclaimed. 

She was n’t the kind of child a 
stranger ’d be apt to get attached to. 
I hope you don’t think I ’d do any- 
thing mean? That isn’t my style! 
All is, I ’m her father, and a father 
ought to have some say-so. Now aint 
that true. Miss Combs?” 

Jane was thinking. Would three 
hundred dollars help you out?” she 
demanded. ''I Ve got that much. 
I ’ve been saving it toward Lola’s 
schooling next year.” 

'' What, have you been sending her 
to pay-school?” Keene looked sur- 
prised, and unexpectedly his eyes be- 
gan to dim. I ’d have been a better 


111 


A Prairie Infanta 


man if I ’d had any luck,” he said, 
with apparent irrelevance. 

Jane made no moral observations. 
She did not point out that a man’s vir- 
tue ought not to depend altogether on 
his income. She said simply, “Will 
that much do?” 

Mr. Keene, controlling his emotion, 
said it would, and they parted upon 
the understanding that they should 
meet at Lynn two days later, for the 
transference of the fund. 

Then Jane plodded wearily back to 
the pavilion, and mutely watched the 
cow-ponies rush and buck around the 
course. She beheld Valentino Cortes, 
a meteoric vision in white cotton trou- 
sers, girdled in crimson, flash by to 
victory amid the wild “Vivas!^^ of his 
compatriots. She saw the burros trot 
past in their little dog-trot of a race. 

But although she essayed a pleased 
smile at these things, and listened 
with enforced attention to the speech- 
es and the music, there were present 
with her foreboding and unrest. For 
112 


A Prairie Infanta 


usually the Dauntless pursued no vig- 
orous labor in summer, but merely 
kept the water out of its slope and 
“ took up ’’ and sold to various smelt- 
ers such “ slack ’’ as it had made dur- 
ing the winter. There would be no 
royalties coming in to J ane, since no 
coal would be mined ; and presently it 
would be September, and no money 
for Lola’s school. 

So Jane’s cares were thickening. 
Not only did the mine soon enter on 
its summer inactivity, but worse be- 
fell. The mine boss came one day to 
tell Jane that, because of a certain 
roll ” in the east entries, it was 
deemed inadvisable farther to work 
these levels. 

The coal over there makes too 
much slack, anyhow,” said the mine 
boss, so we intend hereafter to stick 
to the west.” Whereupon, unaware 
of leaving doom behind him, he went 
cheerfully away. 

Jane’s horizons had always lain 
close about her. She had never been 
113 


A Prairie Infanta 


one to scent trouble afar off. To be 
content in the present, to be trustful 
in the future, was her unformulated 
creed. And now, as .she mused, it 
came to her swiftly that she need not 
despair so long as she had over her 
head a substantial dwelling. This 
abode, in its mere cubhood, had af- 
forded her financial succor. It would 
be queer if such an office were beyond 
it now. Only this time the doctor 
must not be approached; his reason- 
ing before had been too searching. 

Jane therefore wrote to a lawyer in 
Trinidad, authorizing him to obtain 
for her a certain amount of money. 
She felt assured of the outcome of 
this letter, but presently there came 
a reply which stupefied her. The law- 
yer wrote that there happened to be 
in court a suit concerning the boun- 
daries of an old Spanish land grant, 
which, it was claimed, extended north 
of the Purgatory River, and touched 
upon her own and other neighboring 
property. The lawyer wrote that 
114 


A Prairie Infanta 


matters would probably be settled in 
favor of the present landholders, but 
that, so long as litigation pended, all 
titles were so clouded as to make any 
questions of loans untenable. 

Jane felt as if a ruthless destiny 
were pressing her home. She looked 
at Lola, and her heart sank at the 
girPs air of springlike happiness and 
hope. Must these sweet hours be 
broken upon with a tale of impending 
penury ? 

Lola of late had seemed gentler, 
and the silent, stony moods were leav- 
ing her, together with her childish 
impulse toward sudden anger. So 
much Jane saw. Lola herself was 
sensible of a changing sway of feeling 
which she did not seek to understand. 
To read of a noble deed brought swift 
tears to her eyes in these days of rnu- 
tation, and stirred her to emulative 
dreams. 

She did not know what power of ac- 
tion lay in her ; but there seemed to be 
some vital promise in the eager es- 
115 


A Prairie Infanta 


sence of spirit which spread before 
her such visions of beautiful enter- 
prise. Lola did not realize how favor- 
able to ripening character was the at- 
mosphere in which she lived. She 
could not yet Imow how she had been 
impressed by the simple page of plain, 
undramatic kindness and generosity 
which Jane’s life opened daily to her 
eyes. 

One day Jane .spoke to her sadly. 

“ Lola,” she -said, I ’m afraid 
there won’t be enough money to send 
you away to school this year.” 

But papa never denies me any- 
thing, tia/^ 

‘‘ I know, dear.” 

How funny you say that! Is— 
has he— lost his money, tiaf You ’re 
keeping something from me ! ” 

Lola,” said Jane, in a moved 
voice, I don’t know a great deal 
about your father’s means. I can’t 
say they ’re less than they were ; but 
there ’s reasons— why I ’m afraid you 
can’t— go to Pueblo this coming fall. 

116 


A Prairie Infanta 


No, Lola— don’t ask me any questions 
—I can’t speak out! I ’ve done 
wrong! I can’t say any more!” and 
to Lola’s surprise she hurried out of 
the room. 

Never before had Lola witnessed in 
Jane such confusion and distress. 
The sight bewildered and troubled 
her ,so sorely as for the moment to 
exclude from mind the bearing upon 
her own future of Jane’s ambiguous, 
faltering words. Something was sure- 
ly amiss; but the girl as yet fully 
realized only one fact— that tia, al- 
ways so steadfast and strong and 
cheerful, had gone hastily from the 
room in the agitation of one who 
struggled with unaccustomed tears. 
Lola hesitated to follow J ane. Some 
inward prompting withheld her. 

She is like me,” mused the girl. 

She would rather be alone when 
anything troubles her. I will wait. 
Maybe she will come back soon and 
tell me everything.” 

Outside it was as dry and bright as 
117 


A Prairie Infanta 


ever. The Peaks stood bald and pink 
against the flawless sky. Over in the 
Vigil yard Lola saw the smaller Vigil 
boys lassoing one another with a piece 
of clothes-line, while, dozing over her 
sewing, Senora Vigil herself squatted 
in the doorway. Propped against the 
house-wall, Diego Vigil sat munching 
a corn-cake and frugally dispersing 
crumbs to the magpies which hovered 
about him in short, blue-glancing 
flights. 

Diego was two years old— quite old 
enough to doff his ragged frock for 
the pantalones ’’ which his mother 
was still working upon, after weeks 
of listless endeavor. The senora ’s 
thread was long enough to reach half- 
way across the yard, and it took time 
and patience to set a stitch. For very 
weariness the senora nodded over her 
labor, and made many little appeals to 
the saints that they might guide 
aright the tortuous course of her dou- 
ble cotton. 

Life is hard!” sighed the senora, 
118 


A Prairie Infanta 


pausing over a knot in her endless 
thread. Ten children keep the nee- 
dle hot. Ay, but this knot is a hard 
one ! There are evil spirits about. 

She laid down her work to wipe her 
eyes, and, observing two of her sons 
grappling in fraternal war at the 
house corner, she arose to cuff each 
one impartially, exclaiming, 
muchachos! You fight before my 
very eyes, eh ? Take that ! and that ! ’ ’ 
Waddling reluctantly back to her 
sewing, she saw Lola standing in the 
white-pillared porch of the big 
adobe house beyond, and a gleam of 
inspiration crossed the senora’s dark, 
fat face. 

She shall take out this knot,” 
thought Senora Vigil. Senorita!” 
she called. Come here, I pray you! 
There is a tangle in my thread and 
all my girls are away!” 

And, as Lola came across the field, 
she added, I am dead of loneliness, 
Lolita. Ana and Benita and Ines 
and Marina and Alejandro are gone 

8 — A Prairie Infanta, i -l Q 


A Prairie Infanta 


up the Trujillo to the wedding-party 
of their cousin, J udita V asquez. To- 
morrow she marries the .son of Juan 
Montoya. Hola! She does well to 
get so rich a one ! He has twenty goats, 
a cow and six dogs. His house has 
two rooms and a shed. They will 
live splendid ! It is to be hoped these 
earthly grandeurs will not turn Ju- 
dita’s thoughts from heaven!’^ The 
sefiora shook her head cheerfully. 

My Ana told Judita she ought to 
be thankful so plain a face as hers 
should find favor with Jose Montoya. 
My Ana is full of loving thoughts! 
She never lets her friends forget what 
poor, sinning mortals they are!” 

Indeed, no!” agreed Lola, feel- 
ingly, while she smoothed out the 
thread. 

‘‘ Take a stitch or two that I may be 
sure the cotton is really all right!” 
implored the senora. ‘‘Yes, truly 
Ana is a maid of rare charms. When 
she marries I shall be desolate!” 

“ Is there talk of that?” asked 
120 


A Prairie Infanta 


Lola, with interest. Ana was now six- 
teen, and was nearly as heavy as her 
mother, and much more sedate. In 
true Mexican fashion the look of 
youth had left her betimes, and her 
swarthy plumpness had early hard- 
ened and settled to a look of maturity 
to which future years could add little. 

‘‘ There is Juan Suarez,’’ said the 
senora, in a mysterious whisper, and 
if I would I could mention others; 
for, as you know, Lolita, my Ana is 
very beautiful.” 

Lola maintained a judicious silence, 
and the senora continued placidly, 
‘‘ Though she is my child, I am bound 
to admit it. Her nature is a rare one, 
too. And when suitors throng about 
her she only shakes her head. She is 
lofty. She will not listen. ^ No, ca- 
lalleros/ she says, ‘ I have regarded 
your corral. It is too empty.’ And 
one by one they go away weeping, the 
poor Caballeros! She is cruel, my 
Ana, being so beautiful ! Me, I own it 
121 


A Prairie Infanta 


-- though my heart aches to see the Ca- 
balleros shedding tears!” 

Lola, finding her own face expand- 
ing irresistibly, bent lower over 
Diego’s small trousers. The picture 
of Ana, standing disdainful among 
the sorrowing Caballeros and waving 
off their pleas with an imperious 
hand, was one to bring a smile to lips 
of deadliest gravity. Ana, with her 
hands on her broad hips, short and 
thick as a squat brown jug with its 
handles akimbo,— Ana, with her great 
clay-colored face and tiny, glittering 
eyes, with her thick, pale lips and 
coarse, black hair,— surely none but 
a mother could view in Ana such 
charms as bedewed Senora Vigil’s 
eyes only to think of ! 

To see unhappiness is a very 
blade in my heart!” sighed Senora 
Vigil, recovering herself. Do not 
make the thread short, Lolita! No, 
no ! I shall have to thread the needle 
again before the week is out, if you 
do. Ah, yes! I wept much the day 
122 



A Prairie Infanta 

‘“DO NOT MAKE THE THREAD SHORT LOLITA!'” 


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A Prairie Infanta 


when you were lost, and Bev Grib- 
ble, the vaquero, brought you home on 
his horse. ’T was long ago. And now 
you are grown tall and can play the 
piano. Shall you go on fretting your 
poor head with more schooling, cM- 

At this question Lola’s mind sharp- 
ly reverted to the distressing scene 
which had by a moment preceded her 
neighbor ’s summons. There had been 
in Jane’s words a broken, yet oddly 
definite, assertion of impending pov- 
erty. She had spoken of the unlikeli- 
hood of another year in Pueblo for 
Lola, and the girl for the first time 
began to realize this fact with a sink- 
ing of the heart. Her voice had a 
tremor as she said hesitatingly, I ’m 
afraid I can’t go back to Pueblo this 
fall.” 

‘ ‘ Hot go back ? The J onas senorita 
goes back! Why not you? Has thy 
father lost money ? I am thy friend, 
Lolita. Tell me!” 

‘‘ I can’t tell what I don’t know, 
125 


A Prairie Infanta 


senora. I don’t know if he has lost 
money. Tia only said that— that I 
might n’t go back to school. She 
didn’t say why, but she will, no 
doubt.” 

Senora V igil ’s eyes narrowed. She 
recalled certain rumors long afloat 
in town as to Jane’s extravagance, 
and the inability of her means to such 
luxuries as pianos. Also, although 
half-consciously, the senora ’s inner 
memory dwelt upon that corner of her 
back yard which it had been Jane’s 
sad fortune to take away. 

The senora was not unkind or vin- 
dictive, but she had a mouse-trap sort 
of mind which only occasionally was 
open to the admittance of ideas, but 
which snapped fast forever upon such 
few notions as wandered into it. Hav- 
ing once accepted the belief that Jane 
was not averse to snatch at any good 
in her way, even if it belonged to an- 
other, the senora found herself still 
under the sway of this opinion. 

‘‘ The big house of Mees Combs has 
126 


A Prairie Infanta 


cost too much! ’’ she asserted. 
“Where has the money come from*? 
Prom the coal? Some, perhaps, yes; 
but for all of the great house, ah, it 
cannot be! Every one has been say- 
ing there was not enough coal in her 
tract to pay for what she has done; 
and new debts press, doubtless. What 
could be easier than to take the money 
of thy father ? I tell you, Lolita, that 
you cannot go to school because Mees 
Combs has had to use your money to 
pay them! Eh, but your father will 
be mad! He is not working himself 
to a bone that strangers should build 
themselves fine houses! My Pablo 
said a little time ago that people said 
your father’s riches were going 
astray. Me, I did not listen. Now I 
know he spoke true.” The senora’s 
tongue wagged on in a diatribe of ac- 
cusation and pity. 

Lola let the sewing fall. Against 
her stoutest effort there prevailed a 
vivid remembrance of Jane’s manner 
and statements, of Jane’s self-im-' 
127 


A Prairie Infanta 


peachment and agitation, and, try as 
hard as she could to forget them, the 
words which Jane had used kept com- 
ing to mind. ‘‘ I have done wrong! ” 
Had not Jane said this 1 Had she not 
covered her face-— could it be guiltily 
—and gone away? 

‘‘ No,’^ said Lola, hoarsely, half to 
herself, half to her hearer, it isn’t 
true! You make mistakes, Senora 
V igil ! Do you hear ? You make mis- 
takes!” 

‘‘Alas, for thy soft heart !” moaned 
the senora. “ Thou art changed 
much! Me, I would not be hard on 
Mees Combs, though her sin is clear. 
Who am I to judge ? Nay, even I try 
to forget that me she has also de- 
spoiled ; that she took a corner of our 
back yard, and plants corn in it to this 
day ! I am all for forgiving. But the 
saints are not so easy!” said the 
senora, unconscious of any disparage- 
ment to the saints, and referring 
merely to a judicial quality in them. 

Lola was not listening. She had a 
128 


A Prairie Infanta 


burning wish to escape from the soft 
buzzing of the sehora’s words, which, 
a velvety, sting-infested swarm, 
whirred around her bee-like, seeking 
hive and home. 

“ Don’t think I believe anything 
against tia! she heard herself say- 
ing sternly, as the gate slipped from 
her impetuous hand and she rushed 
away, the quarry of emotions which 
no speed, however swift, could out- 
distance. 


129 



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BEWILDERING 

SATISFACTION 


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CHAPTEE SIX 


BEWILDERING SATISFACTION 

L ola found herself walking up 
the canon, between the rocky 
hills beside the dry arroyo. Summer 
dust whitened the road, and rose to 
her tread in alkaline clouds. It was 
warm, too, under the remorseless 
Colorado sun, but nothing touched 
Lola. She was struggling with a 
thing that was half anguish and half 
anger, and that lifted upon her a face 
more and more convincing in its ugli- 
ness. 

It seemed impossible to doubt that 
Jane had indeed worked the wrong of 
which Sehora Vigil accused her— -al- 
though Jane’s own word, and no word 
of the senora’s, bore this conviction to 
Lola’s breast. Jane had faltered in 
133 


A Prairie Infanta 


the trust which she had assumed, and 
now, confronted with the embarrass- 
ment of facing Lola’s father in a 
plain confession of her delinquency, 
she hesitated and was miserable and 
afraid and reluctant. Rather than 
state her situation she would even 
keep Lola from school. 

‘‘It is n’t that I care for that!” 
throbbed Lola. It was not the stop- 
page of her own course, indeed, al- 
though this was a misery, but the loss 
of trust in all humanity which dis- 
trust of Jane seemed to the girl to in- 
flict upon her. If Jane were not true, 
none could be ; and the suspicion and 
unrest rioted back again to the bosom 
which belief in Jane and the world 
had softened and calmed. 

There was nothing to do. Lola’s 
father could easily repair Jane’s 
shortcoming, but not without having 
an explanation of the facts of the case. 
The facts of the case he must never 
know. Even in her pain and indig- 
134 : 


A Prairie Infanta 


nation, Lola never made a question of 
this. 

Suppose it is true!’’ thought the 
girl, suddenly overcome by a new tide 
of feeling. What am I blaming her 
for ^ She would never have fixed the 
house or bought things for herself! 
She did it all for me. And although 
I would rather have gone to school 
than have the piano, am I to blame tia 
for not knowing this? She never 
thought where .she was coming out. 
She just went on and on. And now 
that there is no more money, she is 
frightened and sorry and ashamed. 
She has done everjdhing for me— 
even herself she has fairly made over 
to please me. Poor tia! Oh, ungrate- 
ful that I am to have been thinking 
unkindly of her! ” 

Suddenly all the bitterness left her, 
like an evil thing exorcised by the first 
word of pitying tenderness. Tears 
stole sweetly to her eyes. Peace came 
upon her shaken spirit. The day had 
been full of strange revelations; and 
135 


A Prairie Infanta 


now it showed her how good for the 
human heart it is to be able to pity 
weakness, to love, to forbear and to 
forgive. 

In the strange peacefulness which 
brooded over her she walked home be- 
tween the pihon-sprinkled hills, where 
doves were crooning and the far bleat- 
ing of an upland herd echoed among 
the barren ridges. She reflected quiet- 
ly upon meeting Jane without a hint 
of any shadow in her face, but in such 
sunniness of humor as should gladden 
and reassure. And J ane would never 
dream of the dark hour which had 
visited her child. She would never 
know that any slightest thought, un- 
nurtured in affection, had risen to 
cast between them the least passing 
shadow; although from Lola’s heart 
might never pass away that little, in- 
evitable sense of loss which those 
know whose love survives a revela- 
tion of weakness in one believed to be 
strong. 

As she came in sight of the hollow 
136 


A Prairie Infanta 


roof of the Dauntless she saw the doc- 
tor riding toward her. 

Hello he said. What have 
you been doing up the canon Build- 
ing Spanish castles?’’ 

‘^Watching Spanish castles fall,” 
said Lola, smiling. “ What would 
you do,” she went on lightly, if you 
had planned something worth while, 
and it became impossible?” 

The doctor looked down at her 
young, questioning face. It was 
grave, although she spoke gaily, and 
looked so mere a slip of girlhood with 
her brown throat and cheek and lifted 
black-lashed eyes. 

Unexpectedly the doctor remem- 
bered when he, too, had meant to do 
things that .should be “ worth while.” 
He thought of Berlin and Vienna and 
Paris, and the clinics where he had 
meant to acquire such skill as, aiding 
his zeal, should write him among the 
first physicians of his day. And here 
he was, practising among a few Mexi- 
cans and miners, tending their 

9 — A Prairie Infanta, -j orr 


A Prairie Infanta 


bruises, doling them out quinine, and 
taking pay of a dollar a month from 
every man, sick or well, enrolled on 
the mine books, and frequently get- 
ting nothing at all from such as were 
not therein enrolled. Never a volume 
of his had startled the world of sci- 
ence. Surgery was bare of his ex- 
ploits. Medical annals knew him not. 
All he had thought to do was undone 
by him; and yet here he was, con- 
tented, happy and healthy in a realm 
of little duties. In so unpretentious 
a life as this he had found satisfac- 
tion; and for the first time it came 
upon him that thus simply and calmly 
satisfaction comes to the great mass 
of men who have nothing to do with 
glory or hope of glory. 

When great things become impos- 
sible, what would you do?” said Lola, 
tossing back her long, braided hair. 

I would do little things,” said the 
doctor, with whimsical soberness. 

An unusual equipage was turning 
in from the Trinidad road— an equi- 
138 


A Prairie Infanta 


page on which leather and varnish 
shone, and harness brasses flashed, 
while the dust rolled pompously after 
it in a freakish fantasy of postilions 
and outriders. The driver made a 
great business of his long whip. The 
horses were sleek and brown. Alto- 
gether the vehicle had a lordly air, 
easily matching that of the individual 
sitting alone on the purple cushions— 
a man whose features were not very 
clear at the distance, although the yel- 
lowness of his beard, the glitter of 
his studded shirt-front, and whole 
consequential, expansive effect re- 
called to the doctor’s mind an image 
of the past, less ornate, indeed, and af- 
fluent, but of similar aspect. He nar- 
rowed his eyes, staring townward over 
Lola’s head, and wondering if yonder 
princely personage might not in very 
truth be Lola’s father. 

But the girl’s eyes were bent upon 
the ground. She did not see the 
equipage or the man on the purple 
cushions. 


139 


A Prairie Infanta 


You do little things?’’ she said, 
raising her eyes gravely to the doc- 
tor’s. He had always seemed to her 
the man who did great things. ‘‘ I 
will try,” she added, seriously. 

While she talked with the doctor 
the world seemed to Lola a pleasant 
place, with a golden light on its long 
levels and a purple glamour on its 
hills. And after he had left her, she 
went with a light heart down the un- 
paved street that she had lately tra- 
versed in unseeing bitterness. The 
very hum of the mine cars was full of 
good cheer; children splashed joyous- 
ly in the ditch ; magpies gossiped ; the 
blacksmith-shop rang with a merry 
din of steel. 

Set emerald-like in the yellow circle 
of the prairies, the green young cot- 
tonwood grove about Jane’s house 
shone fresh and vivid. At the white 
gate a carriage waited— a strange car- 
riage which Lola scrutinized wonder- 
ingly as she approached. With de- 
lighted eyes she noted the purple 
140 


A Prairie Infanta 


cushions and the satin coats of the 
horses. Who could have come f 
Whose voice was that which issued 
from the house in an unbroken mono- 
logue, genial, laughing, breathless? 

Suddenly, as she mounted the porch 
steps, a persuasion of familiarity in 
those light accents overcame her. 
Could it be that her father had come 
at last ? That, after all her waiting, 
she was to see him and talk with him 
and sob out on his breast her appre- 
ciation of his long labors in her be- 
half, his kindness, unselfishness and 
goodness ? 

She forgot that she had sometimes 
been hurt at his silence and absence. 
Her childhood swam before her; she 
recalled the sweetness of her mother’s 
face, and in that memory he who 
awaited her in Jane’s sitting-room 
gathered a graciousness which exalted 
him, as if he, too, had been dead and 
was alive again. 

The talk broke off at her impetuous 
entrance. Upon a chair sat a man 
141 


A Prairie Infanta 


with a round and ruddy face, with 
bright blue eyes and a curling spread 
of yellow beard. Lola hesitated. She 
doubted if this richly arrayed, some- 
what stout man could be the slim, boy- , 
ish-looking father she remembered. 
Then the unalterable joyousness of 
his glance reassured her, and she 
rushed forward crying, Oh, it ’s 
you! It ’s you!’’ 

She had not noticed Jane, who sat 
opposite, mute and relaxed, like one 
in whom hope and resolution flag and 
fail; but Jane’s deep eyes followed 
Lola’s swift motion, and her look 
changed a little at the girl’s air of 
eager joy. As she saw Lola fling her- 
self upon his breast and cling there, 
she winced, and her heart yearned at 
the .sight of a love which she had 
somehow failed to win with all her 
efforts, and which now she should 
never win, since Lola was about to 
leave her forever. 

The hour so long dreaded by J ane 
seemed surely to have come at last-— 
142 


A Prairie Infanta 


the hour of her child’s departure. 
Forth to life’s best and brightest Lola 
would go, as was meet. Happiness 
illimitable awaited the girl she had 
cherished. It was right that this 
should be so; yet, alas for the vast 
void gray of the empty heart which 
Lola would leave behind ! 

Well, this is a kind of surprise!” 
said Mr. Keene, holding his daughter 
away for a better sight of her radiant 
face. You are taller than I ex- 
pected. She ’s got real Spanish eyes, 
aint she. Miss Combs? Like her 
mother’s. The Keenes are all sandy. 
I ’m not sure I ’d have known you, 
Lola.” 

Oh, papa, you ’ve been away so 
long! You ’ve been kind and good to 
me— yet— ” 

We ’ll have to let bygones be by- 
gones,” declared her father, gratified 
to learn that she had thought him 
good and kind— for this point had 
rather worried him. I ’ve felt at 
143 


A Prairie Infanta 


times as if I hadn’t done you just 
right.” 

Don’t say so, papa!” 

Well, I won’t,” agreed Mr. 
Keene, willingly. ‘‘ Only I ’m glad 
to find you have n’t cherished any- 
thing against me for leaving you like 
I did. When I persuaded Miss Jane 
to take you, I could n’t foresee what 
hard luck I was going to strike, could 
I*?” As he paused he caught Jane’s 
eye upon him in a significance which 
he did not understand. 

She does n’t know,” said Jane, in 
a sort of whisper, indicating Lola, 
whose hack was toward her. 

Does n’t know what?” asked Mr. 
Keene, unwitting and bewildered. 

Of course she does n’t knhw all I 
suffered, what with taking up one 
worthless claim after another month 
in and out— if you mean that ! Why, 
I actually thought one time of giving 
up prospecting and settling down to 
day’s work! Yes ’m! It was sure 
enough that grub-stake you gave me 
144 


A Prairie Infanta 


last Fourth of July that brought me 
my first luck! I put it right into 
Pony Gulch and my pick struck free- 
milling ore the first blow! Some of 
the stuff runs ninety dollars to the ton 
and some higher. I Ve already had 
good offers for my claim .from an 
English syndicate, but I have n’t de- 
cided to sell. Seems queer it should 
be such a little while ago that I called 
you out of that pavilion, Miss Jane, 
and told you what a fix I was in ! You 
remember you said you had n’t the 
money— and then afterward you 
turned in, real friendly, and raised 
me what I needed.” 

Lola exclaimed, You were here 
in town on the Fourth of July? O 
papa ! Why did n ’t I see you ? Oh— 
what—” 

You came near enough to seeing 
me, ” laughed Mr. Keene, “ and to go- 
ing away with me, too ! I ’m glad 
things happened like they did. That 
boarding-house was no place for you, 
Lola. I realize it now! But I was 
145 


A Prairie Infanta 


pushed to the wall. But for Miss 
Jane’s helping me out, I ’d have had 
to take you away, sure enough ! She 
told you, did n’t she?” 

‘ ‘ Told me ? Told me what ? ’ ’ 

“ Why, about my idea of getting 
you that situation up in Cripple? 
They needed help bad up in the board- 
ing-house where I lived, and I ’d 
made ’em a promise to fetch you. It 
was easy work in the dining-room, 
and right good pay.” 

^‘And— and— fixed it— so— you 
decided to leave me here?” 

That ’s what she did! I ’m 
mighty glad of it, too, for I see you ’re 
not cut out for any such work. I ’m 
not forgetting what I owe Miss J ane. 
She ’s been a good friend to us both. 
I was sorry to hear down in Trinidad 
about your mortgaging your house 
that time. Miss ComlDS. Yes, I ’m 
downright ashamed to think I’ve let 
you pay me month by month for 
Lola’s services, when really you were 
out of pocket for her schooling and 
146 


A Prairie Infanta 


all. But I did n’t realize how things 
were, and now we ’ll level things up.” 

'' My services ! ” Lola sprang to her 
feet. Everything was clear enough 
now. No need to summon charity for 
Jane’s shortcomings! No need to 
overlook, to paUiate, to forgive! 
Jane’s fault had been merely too lav- 
ish a generosity, too large a love. 
There had been no question with her 
of property. She had simply given 
everything she had to a forsaken, un- 
grateful child— home, food, raiment, 
schooling. 

These were the facts. The flood of 
unutterable feeling which swept over 
Lola as the knowledge of it all flashed 
upon her was something deeper than 
thought, something more moving than 
any mere matter of perception. A 
passionate gratitude throbbed in her 
heart, confused with a passionate self- 
reproach. She desired to speak, but 
somehow her lips refused utterance. 
She trembled and turned white, and 
stood wringing her hands. 

147 


A Prairie Infanta 


I was always a generous man/’ 
said Mr. Keene, lost to Ms daughter’s 
looks in pleasant introspection, and 
I mean to do right by you. Miss 
Combs. You ’ll find I ’m not ungrate- 
ful. Lola ’ll always write to you, too, 
wherever we are. I ’m thinking some 
of Paris. How ’d that suit you, Lola 
A person can pick up a mighty good 
time over there, they say. And bon- 
nets— how many bonnets can you 
manage, Lola Why, she looks kind 
of stunned, don’t she. Miss Combs?” 

Jane was gazing at the girl. She 
knew well with what force the blow so 
long averted had fallen at last. In 
her own breast she seemed to feel the 
pain with which Lola had received 
her father’s revelations. 

Lola,” she cried, leaning forward, 
don’t feel so, my lamb! I ’m sorry 
you had to know this. I tried hard to 
keep it from you. But it ’s all out 
now, and you must try to bear it. 
Your father don’t realize— he has n’t 
meant to hurt you. He ’s fond of you, 
148 


A Prairie Infanta 


dearie. And he ’s going to take you 
to foreign lands, and yon can see all 
the great pictures and statues, and 
have a chance to learn all the things 
you spoke of— designing and such. 
Don’t look so, my child !” 

Mr. Keene began to feel highly un- 
comfortable. Evidently, in his own 
phrase, he had put his foot into it 
he had said too much. He had dis- 
closed fallacies in himself of which 
Lola, it seemed, knew nothing. And 
now Lola, who had received him with 
such flattering warmth, was turning 
her face away and looking strange 
and stern and stricken. 

Nor did Miss Combs seem fairly to 
have grasped the liberality of his in- 
tentions. She, too, had a curious air 
of not being exalted in any way by so 
much good fortune. She appeared to 
be engaged solely in trying to recon- 
cile Lola to a -situation which Mr. 
Keene considered dazzling. 

Altogether it was very disturbing, 
especially to a man who did not un- 
149 


A Prairie Infanta 


derstand what he had done to bring 
about so unpleasant a turn. He was 
about to ask some explanation, when 
Lola said slowly, “And you, tia, you 
have done so much for me that you 
have nothing left ? Is that so ? ’ ’ 

“ I don’t need much, Lola. I ’ll be 
all right. Don’t you worry.” 

“You won’t mind living here alone 
and poor*?” 

“ She won’t be poor, Lola,” inter- 
polated Mr. Keene. “ Have n’t I said 
so? And you can come and see her, 
you know. Everything will come out 
all right.” 

Lola turned a little toward him, 
and he was glad to see that her eyes 
were soft and gentle and that the 
stern look had disappeared. “ Yes,” 
she said, “ it will come out all right 
for tia, because I shall be here to see 
that it does.” 

She caught her breath and added, 
“You couldn’t think I should be 
willing to go away and leave her like 
this? Even if I had n’t heard how 
150 


A Prairie Infanta 


much more she has done for me than 
I dreamed? For I have been igno- 
rant till now of many things; but I 
should n’t have forgotten that she 
loved me and had reared me and cared 
for me when there was no one else. 
No, father, no! And now that you 
have let me find out what I owe her, 
do you think I sha’n’t remember it 
always with every beat of my heart ? 
Oh, yes— although I can never repay 
her for all she has suffered in keep- 
ing me from knowing things which 
would have hurt me too much when I 
was little and— and could not make 
allowances— as I can now. My home 
is here. My heart is here, father. 
You must let me stay!” 

She had taken J ane ’s hand and was 
holding it closely— that happy hand 
which for very blessedness and amaze- 
ment trembled more than her own. 
And so holding it, she cried, Tia, 
you want me to stay, don’t you? Say 
yes ! Tell him I may stay ! It is my 
151 


A Prairie Infanta 


home where yon are. And oh, how 
different I will be ! ’ ^ 

Jane, listening, could only press 
those slender, clinging fingers in 
speechless comfort, and look up 
silently into the imploring eyes of her 
child— eyes filled with tears and love. 
A moment of silence ensued. Then, 
clearing his throat suddenly, Mr. 
Keene rose and walked to the win- 
dow. 

Lola,” he said presently, turning 
to face the two others, I don’t blame 
you one bit. Miss Jane ’s done a heap 
more for you than I had any notion. 
’T is n’t only that she ’s done all you 
say, but she ’s raised you to be a girl 
I ’m proud of —a right-minded, right- 
hearted girl. I never thought how it 
would look for you to be willing to 
rush off at the first word and leave be- 
hind you the person you owed most to 
in the world! But I ’m free to say 
I would n’t have liked it when I come 
to think of it. I would n’t have felt 
proud of you like I do now. Knock- 
152 



A Prairie Infanta 

TIA, YOU ARE A LADY OF FORTUNE! 
153 


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A Prairie Infanta 


ing around the foot-hills has shaken 
me up pretty well, but I know what ’s 
right as well as any man. There ’s 
things in my life I ’d like to forget ; 
but they say it ’s never too late to 
mend. And I have hopes of myself 
when I see what a noble girl my 
daughter ’s turned out. ’ ’ 

He put his handkerchief away and 
came and stood before them, adding, 
‘‘ I have n’t had a chance to finish my 
other story. When Miss Jane gave 
me that grub-stake she did n’t know, I 
reckon, that half of anything I might 
strike would belong to her— that in 
law, grub-stakes always means halves ! 
But I never had any intention of not 
dealing fair and square. So when I 
said .she was n’t going to be poor, I 
meant it ! For half ‘ the Little Lola ’ 
belongs to her. And if she ’s willing, 
I ’ll just run the mine for the next 
year or so, and after that we can talk 
about traveling.” 

Mr. Keene, during the past hour, 
had been made sensible of certain de- 

10 — A Prairie Infanta. prpr 


A Prairie Infanta 


ficiencies in himself. No one had ac- 
cused him or reproached him, yet he 
felt chagrined as he saw his own con- 
duct forcibly contrasted with the con- 
duct of a different sort. But now, as 
his daughter sent a beaming glance 
toward him, his spirits rose again, 
and he began once more to regard 
himself hopefully, as a man who, de- 
spite some failings, was honest in the 
main, and generous and well-mean- 
ing. 

Oh, how glad I am!” said Lola. 

Tia, tia, do you hear? You are a 
lady of fortune and must have a vel- 
vet gown ! And, oh, tia, a tall, silver 
comb in your hair!” She dropped a 
sudden kiss down upon the smooth, 
brown bands, and added in a deeper 
tone, But nothing, nothing, can 
make you better or dearer !” 

Jane smiled uncertainly as if she 
were in a dream. Could this un- 
looked-for, bewildering satisfaction 
be indeed real, and not a visionary 
thing which would presently fade? 
156 


A Prairie Infanta 


She looked about. There was actual- 
ity in the scene. The cottonwoods 
rustled crisply, Alejandro Vigil was 
calling to his dog, and the tinkle of his 
herd stole softly upon her ear. The 
great hills rose majestic as of old 
upon the glorious western sky; the 
plains stretched off in silvery, sea- 
like waves to the very verge of the 
world. And hard by many a familiar 
thing spoke of a past which she knew ; 
pots of geraniums, muslin shades and 
open piano. There, too, was Mr. 
Keene, sitting at ease in his chair; 
there was Lola, bending over her in 
smiling reassurance. And finally, 
there was Tesuque himself regarding 
her from his shelf in an Olympian 
calm which no merely mortal emotion 
could touch or stir. Tesuque ’s little 
bowl was still empty, but in his adobe 
glance J ane suddenly grew aware how 
truly her own cup overflowed. 

[the end] 


157 





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A PRAIRIE INFANTA 

By Eva Wilder Brodhead 


A clever Western story that develops in a little Colorado 
mining town. One is made to see the green, tall cottonwoods, 
'the straggling mud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its 
people, among whom lived the woman who took to her great 
heart the motherless Lola. 

The tropical brilliancy of the girl, by reason of her red frock 
and the red ribbons in her hair, excites the jealousy of the 
little Mexicans and the paler children from the mining end of 
the town, and in their disapproval they style her “ Infanta." 
The story of the girl's life is charmingly told, and eventually, 
her father, a man who, despite some failings, is generous and 
well-meaning, reappears in the character of a wealthy mine 
owner, and brings the story to an unlookcd for and happy 
termination. 

Cloth, ornamental, illustrated, 50 cents 


WITCHERY WAYS 

By Amos R. Wells 


PICTURES BY L. J. BRIDGMAN 


Children may well be grateful to the forgotten people who, 
long ago, first invented fairy tales. Mr. Wells confesses, in 
the preface to this book, that he has a very tender regard for 
the “ Little People," as fairies used to be called in those days, 
and now he has given us, under the title of “ Witchery Ways," 
some fairy tales of his o^n which will prove a never-ending 
delight to every reader. 

Cloth, ornamental, illustrated, 5° cents 



SONNY BO^ 

By Sophie Swett 


Sonny Boy was ten years old. His name was Peter, but his 
mother thought that too large a name for a small boy. 

Aunt Kate, one of the “ right kind," is lonesome in her new 
house without any young people, and borrows Sonny Boy for 
six months. The lad has a happy visit and many pleasant 
experiences, learning the while some helpful lessons. Delight- 
edly one reads of Otto and the white mice ; Lena and the 
parrot, the wild man of the circus, and Sonny Boy’s ambition 
to command the Poppleton Guards, but Miss Swett tells the 
story, and when that is said, nothing remains but to enjoy the 
book. 

Cloth, ornamental, handsomely illustrated, 50 cents 


HENRY ALTEMUS CO., PPIILADELPHIA 



A GOURD FIDDLE 

By Grace MacGowan Cooke 

A little colored boy, the sole orphaned remainder of a long 
line of masters of the violin, alone of the army of negroes who 
had borne the family name, is left to wait upon the old mistress 
and Miss Patrice at the “ Great House." 

Miss Patrice teaches Orphy to sing the chants and anthems 
in the service of the little church where he was baptized, and 
with her voice new airs for his violin. Plantation songs he 
knew and rendered with a pleasing coloring. 

After the death of his teacher Orphy falls upon hard times, 
but eventually his talent is recognized by a professor of music 
who takes him to Europe, and there, under peculiar circum- 
stances, he plays on his home-made gourd fiddle before no less 
a personage than Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. 

Cloth, ornamental, handsomely illustrated, 50 cents 


BUMPER AND BABY JOHN 

By Anna Chapin Ray 

PICTURES BY CURTIS WAGER-SMITH 
An irresistibly humorous relation of the haps and mishaps 
of the homeliest, yet most dependable dog in the world, and a 
delightful red-haired and freckled child, whose united ages did 
not exceed seven years. 

But apart from the humor of the book, it is alive with 
human interest, and there is pathos as well. And this is not 
to forget the artist in praise of the author; the illustrations 
could not have been confided to a better hand. 

Cloth, ornamental, illustrated, 50 cents 


A LITTLE ROUGH RIDER 

By Tudor Jenks 

Author of “Galopoff, the Talking Pony,” ''Gypsy, the 
Talking Dog,” etc. 

PICTURES BY REGINALD B. BIRCH 
Under the title of "A Little Rough Rider” the author tells 
the story of a little girl, who, as Senorita Finette, the eques- 
trienne, saved the fortunes of a circus during the early years of 
the gold-fever in California. Her charming feats on the back 
of her trained horse. Blanco, win fame and fortune for herself 
as well, the latter being augmented later by the discovery of 
gold on certain lands. 

Cloth, ornamental, illustrated, 50 cents 


HENRY ALTEMUS CO., PHILADELPHIA 








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